Kalifornia (26 page)

She didn’t understand—

She was inside him now, but she didn’t see what Thaxter really
saw. She tried to play the wires of the Halfjest walking in the park, but
nothing happened. It was an illusion, unreal, he wasn’t in any park at all. He
was here, right in front of her, but she couldn’t touch him, couldn’t get
inside.

Then a voice from deep within her, the voice of the watcher, said,
“Peekaboo, Kali. I see you. Can’t you see me?”

Halfjest’s voice.

She rose from the chair, needing all the power she could summon.
Thaxter Halfjest was both here and not-here.

She raised her sheeny metal arms. “You!” she said.

“That’s right, dear,” said the Reverend Governor. “I am the
fortunate bearer of these good tidings.”

“It’s
Kali’s
show,
then,” Alfredo said, unaware of what Kali knew. “Not a family show? Only Kali’s?”

She tried to speak but her mouth wouldn’t work. Her wires were
being pulled for the first time, as she had pulled so many others. She lashed
out at Halfjest, trying to injure his wires in self-defense—

And found herself in the illusory park. Sniffing illusory flowers.

She heard him chuckling. Here she was in Halfjest’s body. It had a
thin, unreal quality about it.

“Well, well,” she heard him saying. “It’s nice to finally meet
you, Kali. I was afraid High Priestess Marjorie would find a way to keep you
all to herself. But your talent—like mine—deserves to be shared with the
world.”

“What . . . what are you doing?” she asked.
She could work this mouth, this body—but the ability was no more useful than
the ability to control a dream.

“I’m taking your place, dear. You have far too much responsibility
for a mere baby. I’m putting you in a lovely place much more suited to someone
your age.”

Ahead, through green trees, around the curve of a flagstone path,
she spied a meadow. Swings, slides, a sandbox, and a wading pool. Thaxter
walked her straight toward it; then his body, now her body, began to deflate.
She sank toward the ground. The trees expanded, stretching out to the
artificial sky. She glanced down and saw his hands shrinking, turning small and
chubby; the hair receded from his arms, leaving them little pink columns. His
steps covered a shorter distance with each successive stride; then they hardly
carried her at all. She stumbled and landed on all fours.

Help, she thought.

She tried to reach back into her real body, groping for the
protection of her grown-up suit, but she couldn’t find them—or anything else
familiar.

The RevGov said, “If it’s any consolation, you’re about to be a
lot more popular than the Magyk 7.”

She sat down on the path and wailed. “Why?”

Halfjest spoke out of her nerves, her blood, her nails: “California is the world leader in science, in technology, in fashion, art, and culture. It
rules the world in so many things, I fail to see why it shouldn’t simply
rule
the world!
”
And
then he was gone.

She was a baby again, or for the first time, really. Helpless,
trapped in a snare that Halfjest had created to capture her. She howled and
scraped the path till her soft fingertips bled. The pain was thin, but real
enough.

No one came in answer to her cries. No one ever would. There was
no one else here. From a world of billions—all company for her, all potential
playmates—to this. . . .

After a while, when her eyes were finally dry, she started toward
the playground in the meadow. It was a long way to go, for a baby.

S01E12.
 
Zing!
 
Went
 
the
 
Strings

Poppy woke inside a dream.

She knew she was dreaming, but it was the closest she had been to
consciousness for . . . for how long?

How long since she had run along a roadside that exploded into a
river of stars and sounds which turned slowly to a Styx of stillness and
silence?

How long?

In the dream she was looking for something, searching everywhere,
feeling as empty as the hollow places that held her. And when she had found it,
she almost woke—but not quite. The dream was too peaceful; she didn’t want to
leave it.

She was in a green place, singing quietly as though to a child.
She sang to herself, really, because she was weak and needed healing. She
cradled herself in her own arms, singing quietly, rocking and rocking herself.
Holding her daughter, herself held, in a green place.

The child was very small, very frail, very frightened. Her mother’s
voice calmed her a little, though. She looked up at Poppy with golden eyes, and
Poppy could see herself through the child’s eyes. As they had been at birth,
but without pain: there was no feedback, only a current of warmth. This was her
daughter, this little one.

In the dream, her daughter began to speak, voicing both of their
fears.

“Help me,” she said. “Help me, Mommy.”

“I will, dear. I will.”

“Mommy . . .”

“Poppy.”

That was another voice. An insistent voice, trying to take her
away from her daughter. She had searched too long to lose the baby now, she
thought. She could fight the voice—had to, in fact. But then the voice sent
hands. Hands all over her, touching her, trying to be cautious but still
ripping her out of the dream, tearing Poppy away from her child.

Not now. Not after all this. How could she lose her again?

Please, Mommy!

Not again!

“Poppy, it’s me, Sandy. Come on, wake up. It’s just a dream, you’re
having a dream.”

Sandy
?

She opened her eyes and saw him standing over her. She was—where?
In a bed, of course. She’d been sleeping. Dreaming. Dreaming of a green place
where someone sang and called for her. She felt a sense of great loss but
couldn’t place it. What had she lost? She was so confused.

“Sandy? Where am I?”

He looked relieved. “You remember me? They said you were amnesic.
You’re at home, doll. How are you feeling? Healing up, I see.”

She tried to sit. Her muscles were sore; her whole body ached. Why
was that?

“Sandy?” she said. “Was . . . was I in an
accident?”

He stared at her as if wondering how to tell her. “You can’t
remember? Oh, Poppy, I hadn’t realized. I don’t mean to push you too hard.”

“My . . . my baby. I was dreaming about my
baby, I think.”

His face changed, darkened. “Kali?”

“Calafia,” she said.

“Kali now. That’s what she calls herself.”

Poppy’s heart leaped. She started to swing her legs out of bed.
“She’s here?”

“She’s here, all right. They say she started you healing. I’m not
sure how much to believe, but there’s no doubt she’s got amazing powers. She’d
be here right now, except she’s about to do a wire show.”

Poppy felt a moment’s desolation, wondering why they hadn’t
brought her daughter to her when she woke. Perhaps she did have amnesia. Maybe
she woke like this every single day, forgetting all the days that had gone
before, repeating this act each morning. Maybe they were tired of telling her
the same things over and over again. To her, each day was a revelation; while
to them, each awakening was an ever drearier chore.

“A wire show,” she said. “Already? Sandy, how long has it been
since the . . . accident?”

She hesitated when she named the event. Details were starting to
return. She had fled; had been chased. Suddenly she remembered Clarry—

“It’s been a few months, Poppy. What—what’s wrong?”

“Clarry Starko,” she said, looking quickly around the room as
though he might be hiding somewhere.

“Dead,” Sandy said. “He was murdered.”

She lay back, asking nothing. It was enough to know he wouldn’t be
coming after her. No more midnight chases. Why ask questions? The answers would
only confuse her. For now there was something more important to keep hold of,
though she wasn’t yet sure why it mattered.

A fleeting image. A glimpse of green, lingering from the dream.

Golden eyes.

Her baby!

She remembered holding the child. The memory of holding
Calafia—Kali—in the dream was as real as any memory of sensation; it was as
real as the memory of Sandy’s hands on her arms when she woke. Perhaps
this
was
the dream, and that green place was real. She wished she could be there again
with her daughter.

“I want to see her, Sandy,” she said.

“Well, you’ve got your wires. You can tune into her easily enough.
This is a big event. She’s a cult figure, a born star. The networks have her on
virtually every channel. There’s no way you can miss her. She’s live. You’ll be
able to feel her completely.”

Poppy closed her eyes and tried tuning in to her daughter’s
signal. She knew it intimately; she remembered the strong link coursing between
them in the moment of delivery, like an intimate closed circuit. If only she
could find that channel again. The memory alone should have been enough to tune
her to the broadcast.

But something was wrong with her wires. Maybe the accident had
fouled her reception.

She just kept remembering that dream. The green place was getting
clearer, her focus sharpening.

The dream-memory kept changing, as though she were dreaming with
her eyes open. The vision had moved on, so that she reentered at a later point.

She felt sand sifting through her fingers. Little fingers. She
heard someone weeping. Lifting her eyes she saw trees against a blue sky. She
seized another handful of sand and let it pour away. Then she sank down
weeping.

“Mommy . . .” she said.

Poppy opened her eyes and looked at Sandy. “She misses me, Sandy.”

He looked a little puzzled. “What’s going on?”

“It’s such a sad program. Why would they make her do something so
sad? It seems too private, too subtle. Not a popular sort of thing.”

“What’re you seeing?”

“You can’t feel her?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Sure I can. I just wondered how it seemed to
you. Why sad?”

“Well . . . because she’s in that park all by
herself. She’s playing in sand and crying and calling for . . . for
me, I guess. All alone.”

Now he looked very confused. “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound
like the program they—uh, I’m getting.”

“What do
you
feel?”

He stood up suddenly. “Poppy, are you up for a walk? I mean, are
you strong enough to come with me? Just to the car?”

“I think so,” she said tentatively. Her legs felt strong; she
wanted to stretch them. “Why? Can we go see her?”

“Yeah, I’d be really curious. She’s in Studio City.”

“A studio?” she said. “It looks so much like a park.”

“Well, you know what they can do with special effects these days,”
he said. Even as he said it, his face changed. His eyes got wide; he looked
frightened.

“What’s wrong, Sandy?”

“I’m not sure. Come on, let’s see if we can get you on your feet.”

***

From the air, there seemed to be a riot going on down in Studio City. People were crawling over each other to get closer to the huge building where
Kali was holding her live broadcast. Sandy carried VIP credentials so that the
vehicle wouldn’t be deflected as he dropped to a landing on the roof. He
ushered Poppy toward the guest entrance. As they passed near the edge he looked
down on the mob.

A tremor passed through the crowd. All at once the people turned
calm, peaceful. They began to form orderly lines, concentric rings surrounding
the building and trailing off into the glittering streets. A hush fell over the
city, the state, perhaps the world. Sandy didn’t want to think about the extent
of the broadcast.

The public had followed her story as if it were the Second Coming,
though free of sectarian bias: no one with polynerves would willingly miss the
broadcast. With unfortunate timing, Thaxter Halfjest had successfully passed
Proposition 5,997, the measure prohibiting signal-scramblers in office
buildings, so that even more people were being exposed throughout the state.

They had all tuned into Kali, their media goddess, and she held
their wires. They were hers now. Like the thousands of neurons in a single
brain, but linking up for the first time, switching on all at once, innumerable
combinations creating a new personality, a thing different and greater than any
of them. A new form of consciousness was coming into being right there below
him in the streets of SanFrangeles, some kind of monster or god waking up. He
feared it might see him and instantly know his deception.

He had dreaded this day, dreaded his return to California, putting
it off until General Navarro-Valdez informed him that it could be postponed no
longer. Arriving home this morning, he had found the house in an uproar, Kali
already gone to the studio. Alfredo was amazed to see him but too busy to ask
for explanations. Sandy, by delaying his arrival until the last moment, had
been excluded from their plans. It was just as well; he had to act alone,
knowing what only he truly knew.

Well, plenty of others knew it by now. They had surrendered to
Kali. They arranged themselves in the streets with military precision and
awaited her commands. They must have sensed, with some dim, inexperienced
vestige of critical reasoning, that all this discipline and harmony did not
come naturally. Surely somewhere inside the net of wires, some of them must be
wondering what the hell was going on. When their rapture passed, they would
find themselves trapped and helpless. Tremors of indecision might be passing
through that vast, quickening brain, where pockets of synergistic psychosis
waited to be discovered.

“She has already taken control of the world’s wired militia,” the
general had told him. “But the citizens themselves remain largely untouched.
With the upcoming broadcast, all that will change.”

It was changing right now.

He felt it around him, all those people breathing, moving, acting
in unison, with one mind. Controlled by a child. He wondered where a child
could have learned such discipline. What use did she have for rank and file?
Playful chaos, a creative frenzy, was more what he had imagined would follow
when Kali took control, nothing like this. Nothing so grim. This foreshadowed a
shift toward a horrible regime—something beyond tyranny or fascism—unimaginably
worse than anything the world had seen before. This must be one of those kinks
“Bob” had mentioned.

He was grateful to be watching rather than experiencing her
control. She couldn’t touch him, not from within, though there were any number
of things she could do or have done to him from without.

After all, what scruples did a child have? Especially a child with
such a keen grasp of military tactics?

Never mind my own scruples, he thought.

I’m only coming here to murder my niece, after all, and bringing
her mother along to watch me do the job.

And look at that crowd! They’ll tear me apart. There won’t be a
piece of me left intact—not a single mitochondrion. Unless Kali’s death rips
into them, stuns them all . . . the way I went into shock
when she switched me off. Even then, they’ll hardly look at me with pleasure or
relief—they won’t exactly
thank
me for
killing their idol. Unless this sensation of being out of control really puts a
fright into them. It sure scared the tan out of me. Bleached my bronze to
fish-belly white.