Kalifornia (8 page)

Suddenly that high flame snuffed out. Three Daughters hurried over
the stage, extinguishing votive candles, plunging the entire sanctum into
darkness.

I’m too late, thought the Official Crone.

The morning mass began.

A light brighter than any flame sprang from the shrine’s high window,
cleaving the dark air, casting its radiance on the screen of dingy pearl above
the stage. The Daughters cupped their hands together, beginning to moan. For a
moment the light was too hot to bear; they squinted, not daring to turn away.
Then, mercifully, a bit of shadow obtruded, softening the glare.

Black fingers fluttered across the white field. A sinuous black
arm eclipsed the screen.

Now appeared the head, shoulders, and arms of a dancing woman. Her
whole body followed. Snakelike she writhed against the screen, blacker than the
night sky, banishing the hated sunlike glare. Once again the temple sank into
blackness, but this was deeper, darker, richer than the puny shadows that had
come before. This was the blackness of Kali, whose very name meant black.

The Official Crone’s eyes rolled up in her skull. She sank to her
knees. She was not the only one in rapture as narcotic smoke poured from the
ventilation shafts and whistles wailed in the hollow heights.

“Kali!” they whispered. “Kali-ma!”

“Daughters!” cried the High Priestess, her voice falling all
around them. “Daughters, the age of the sun is coming to an end. Tonight is
Kali’s time. The governments tumble, the nations will crumble. Tonight, even
this decadent land of poppies and lotus-eaters has felt the force and cunning
of Her wrath. While California sings and laughs, her golden hair is gripped in
the black fist of the Goddess!”

“Kali-Kali-Kali-ma!”

Shadows crept like inky smoke into the convolutions of the
Official Crone’s brain, rooting out her secrets and her sins, feeding on her
shame. They poked and prodded till she knew she must vomit out her guilt. Still
she held her tongue, choking down the bile of her blasphemy.

“Truly, Daughters, the long night is falling. Kali’s age is upon
us. We live in the center of the storm, in Kali’s eye. Our mother will preserve
us when she brings the black balm of total annihilation.”

“Kali spare me!” the Official Crone shrieked, unable to bear any
longer the raking of black claws. “I have sinned! I have touched a man!”

Silence.

At her words, even the High Priestess fell silent. The darkness
felt more ordinary now, though it remained ominous. A few candles sprang to
life and the mother flame was rekindled in the high window of the most holy
fane.

The Official Crone began to tear at her hair, begging silently
for mercy. Oh, how the Goddess would punish her. Now she might never die. She
would live forever beneath a searing noonday sun, in a California of chrome and
plastic, enduring the smiles of young men with skin of bronze.

Suddenly the High Priestess, appearing out of nowhere, clutched
her shoulder and dragged her to her feet.

“How have you sinned, old woman? Did you fail in your mission? Why
didn’t you come to me directly? How did you fail? When did you get back? What
man distracted you? Can’t we trust you on your own anymore, or are you
determined to disgrace this temple with your vile hag-lust?”

“Please, please,” the Official Crone gasped. “In the wagon, it was
there I touched. Oh, forgive me, Kali. Forgive me, Priestess.”

The High Priestess shoved her through the door, into the alley.
“Stop your wailing. The pain you feel is nothing compared to what will come as
your punishment.”

The wagon sat silent in the alley. The child made no sound.
Perhaps he had bounced out after all. Would that make the High Priestess any
more merciful? Allow the Official Crone to doubt it.

“A man, you said. Where?”

The crone pointed with a trembling finger. The High Priestess and
two Daughters advanced to the wagon, while others—fierce guardians—held the
elderly woman erect. The High Priestess began to sort through the sacks.
Finally she found what she sought, and let out a bitter laugh.

“A man, you said?”

“A male, Priestess! I meant a male! I did as you asked, everything
went perfectly, the other wagon was delayed, the child fell from the sky—but
still, still, this is what came to us. I didn’t mean to look, but how could I
avoid . . . 
it?
”

A commotion spread through the Daughters. Some cast their eyes
fearfully to the sky, but thankfully there was no flush of dawn between the
corroded towers.

“Not a man,” said the High Priestess, chuckling. “Not even a male,
dear old Crone, though I see how you made such a mistake with your bad eyes.”

“A mistake?” the Official Crone said hopefully.

The babe began to bawl. The High Priestess tore away the swaddling
and raised the child aloft. In the pale light falling from inside the temple,
the Official Crone saw once again the thing that had terrified her in the
streets.

But now, in steadier illumination, she saw where she had made her
mistake.

The child possessed female genitalia, a hairless cleft, a tiny
mound. All this and something more: not a penis, but very like one.

“Do you see, old woman?” The High Priestess shook the baby. “Do
you see what you mistook for masculinity? It’s nothing to be afraid of. In
fact, it’s a triumph. This is the child I sent you for; no other comes so
specially equipped.”

The Official Crone could scarcely take her eyes off the tiny wisp
of . . . well, not flesh exactly. It looked more like
plastic cable, shiny and clean, ending not in an irrational foreskin-covered
glans, but in a reasonable metal tip. A simple prong.

The High Priestess’s laughter echoed from the buildings. Far away,
one could hear an unwitting answer in the revels of the Franchise.

The Official Crone let out a sigh and sank to the street.

“Yes, old woman, you have served Kali well.” The High Priestess
signaled to the other Daughters. “Let her have the reward Kali promised. The
Black Needle—Kali’s blessing.”

The Official Crone let out a cry of relief and delight. The
Daughters crowded around, helping her to her feet, excitedly proclaiming, “Isn’t
it wonderful? Kali’s blessing! Tonight you die!”

“Oh!” she cried. “Thank the Goddess!”

“Have a nice death,” the High Priestess bid her. “You well deserve
it.”

While others took the Official Crone to her reward, the High
Priestess remained behind. She held the child close to her cheek, inhaling the
sharp scents of night that clung to the warm, damp flesh. She smelled sulfur,
gunpowder, the brassy taint of human fear. Not the child’s fear, no, but the
fear of others who had touched her during the night.

Her own mother must have feared her.

The High Priestess gazed at the night sky, a black maelstrom of
smoke.

“Kali is your mother now,” she whispered.

The baby gave a startled cry.

“Yes, Daughter, we are all her children. But for you she has
reserved something special, something quite unique.”

The child quieted, staring at the High Priestess with deep golden
eyes. The girl was more beautiful than she had imagined. Her eyes glowed like
the sun. But this sun would bring an end to the other.

“In honor of this night, we have a special name for you. Yes,
Daughter. Henceforth, you shall be known as Kalifornia.”

PART
 
TWO

S01E04.
 
Revolt
 
of
 
the
 
Wage
 
Slaves

Alfredo Figueroa stood at his sea-level window, thumbs hitched in
suspenders that never stopped chafing, looking out at a distant figure with
long, sun-bleached hair who seemed to be standing on the waves. Sandy had found something to amuse himself in the corporation: he surfed the break that
peeled off a corner of the seascraper. Alfredo, on the other hand, never took a
moment’s pleasure from the business. He’d thought working would distract him
from grief, but it had proved an added burden. Thoughts of Marjorie never went
away. They couldn’t be papered over, not even by a bureaucracy.

He’d given the corporate world its chance to heal him, to return
all the favors he’d done for commerce when, as America’s favorite father, he’d
lived the life of a walking, talking sponsor. Three years, and no improvement.
What’s worse—for the public—since the Figueroas there had been no family with a
fraction of their appeal. It was as if the audience itself had lost a mother
and seen its family fractured. Which was true enough. Most members of the
audience had never had a real coherent family of their own, certainly nothing
with the clear and stable lineaments of the Figueroas.

We were a force for stability, he thought with more than a little
pride. We were always there for folks; with all our problems, they could count
on us. Our wires were their moral fiber. And then . . . we
let them down. We wimped out. Ran away. Skedaddled. No wonder I’ve been sick
with myself ever since. At a time when they needed us the most, we abandoned
them, ignoring the fact that our problems had become their problems. It really
wasn’t fair to tear our support away from them like that.

Who knows what other influences might have rushed in to fill the
gap we left? At least we were wholesome and traditional—we had the network
censors to see to that. We were living therapy. Might they ever take us back?
Would they trust us now—or what remains of us? Are they waiting for a sequel or
have they lost interest?

Do they need us as much as we need them?

No. The healing I needed isn’t here, in isolation from the world.
You have to be within the world, and let it into you. That’s the only fair way
to involve yourself in change.

“Mr. Figueroa,” said a voice, “your Seer is here.”

He turned away from the glass. “Send her in, please.”

His stomach fluttered as if he were a boy again. It felt like wire
fright, although he wasn’t sending, and the building’s anti-wireshow field
prevented him from receiving all but specially coded business signals. The
Seer always made him nervous and excited. Anticipation of her presence often
turned his thoughts to metaphysics and philosophy.

She stepped silently into the room.

“Seer,” he said, bowing a bit. He fought his nervousness with
formality. He restrained himself from blurting all his doubts at once.

She glided up to the desk and extended a hand from beneath a
baggy gauze of multilayered and many-colored fabrics, all of them more or less
transparent. She was slung with gold chains, rhinestones, amethyst pyramids,
antique fuses, papier-mache and turquoise beads, leprechaun charms, Monopoly
pieces, mouse skulls, sharks’ teeth, gold fillings, pierced tektites, horseshoe
magnets, ginseng and St. John the Conqueror roots, knit mojo bags, greasewood yonis
and wax lingams, tiny flickering neon mandalas, brass bells, antique soapstone
TV sets. . . .

He took her scented hand and kissed it. She turned the palm toward
him and he leaped back with a startled sound.

An eye winked out of her palm.

She laughed at his surprise. “It’s only a hologram, Alfredo.
Nothing to fear.”

It winked farewell when she took her hand away.

“It looks so real,” he said.

“Ah, it’s supposed to. But it’s all illusion. Pierce the veil,
remember? Don’t take anything for granted.”

“I try to keep it in mind,” he said earnestly. “I’m always
reminding myself that it’s . . . it’s all unreal. Is that
it?”

“Yes, unreal. A dream, a dance. Maya.”

He wondered. And all his thoughts of the audience—were they
illusory too? What did he really know of the world beyond the rarefied realm in
which he’d traveled? Nothing! Only what he’d picked up from the wires. And his
programming choices were tailored, however unintentionally, by his mood, to
suit his expectations. What evidence did he have that his audience was composed
of isolated individuals without families of their own? Mightn’t that “insight”
simply reflect his own recent despair and the limited extent of his experience?

Throwing her hands over her head, the Seer spun a few quick steps
of tarantella to catch his attention.

He froze, her captive prey.

She dropped her arms and came around the desk. “Tell me what
worries you, Alfredo. I see fear knit up in your brow. There’s a dark cloud
over your crown chakra and clots in your solar plexus.” Her face darkened
slightly when she looked down at his groin. “Ugh. And there’s something that
looks like a hairball in your root chakra, bacon grease and steel wool—”

He couldn’t keep from smiling when she said that.

“This needs immediate expert attention, a kundalini snaking of
your plumbing. How could you have let it go so long?”

Her nimble fingers worked the snaps of his belt and trousers. She
chanted under her breath. Bells rang as she lowered her head. The veils hid her
activities from sight although he felt them well enough. He gasped, stumbled
backward, and caught himself against the desk. The fog of mental chatter slowly
parted. . . .

Suddenly Sandy streaked past the window—no more than ten feet
away—waving into the room, his mouth going slack as he saw his father and the
Seer. He lost his balance, tumbled from the board, but the wave carried him on.

“Good God,” Alfredo said.

“So patriarchal,” said the Seer, raising her head to scowl at him.
“No wonder you have such problems.”

“No, not that. My son.”

“He worries you? Well, rest your mind.” She straightened, pressed
against him. A rodent tooth pricked him through his undershirt. “We need to
activate the full kundalini. Spawning snakes.”

“Not—not now,” he said, peering out the window. Sandy swam away,
one arm over his board. Alfredo hitched up his trousers and cleared his throat.
He couldn’t get his suspenders snug again; with a curse he ripped them off and
hurled them into a document shredder.

The Seer sat down in his chair, lifted a tiny mirror on a chain around
her neck, and checked her mouth. “Well,” she said, “perhaps a little business
is what you need. I’ve been looking where I can, you know, but I haven’t seen a
thing.”

Alfredo came around to the conversation slowly. “Looking for the
baby?”

“Of course the baby, who do you think? You see what happens when
you only disturb the slumbering serpents without waking them fully? Your head
is full of condensed seed. You need to circulate the
chi,
draw
it down again to the bronze vessel. Or else give up alchemy.”

Alfredo sighed and sat on a corner of the desk. “So, then. No
news.”

“I told you not to expect too much. Even if the kidnappers were to
trumpet their plans on the wireways, the chances of hearing it . . . you
of all people should know how much info passes through us every day. We’re
bathed in it. Trying to fish out one tiny bit of truth about your granddaughter
is like . . . like trying to get a one-eyed turtle to slip
into a dog collar in an ocean the size of the universe.”

Alfredo stared at her. “I’m sorry?”

She dismissed his confusion with a brisk gesture. “Old Buddhist
proverb meaning great difficulty! Finding a needle in a haystack is nothing
compared to this. I’m bombarded with misleading information; the wires buzz
with speculation, rumors. Overload! No one knows a thing, Alfredo. If they
did, I’d know it too. And right away
you
would
know.”

He clasped her hand. “Thank you, Seer.”

“I don’t need your thanks, Alfredo. You’re an old friend. Just
cross my palms with credit.”

He nodded. “I’ll make the usual transfer. And you won’t give up?”

“Not till that turtle’s on a leash.” She rose. “You know you can
call on me anytime. And be sure to tune in to the show some afternoon. It would
be nice to have a gentleman in the audience for a change.”

“You know I can’t pick it up from in here,” he said. “But . . . I’ll
take an afternoon off especially for you.”

“You’re a dear.” She kissed him on the cheek and started out, but
turned back before she reached the door. “Oh, Alfredo. I almost forgot. There’s
a rumor spreading . . . about this building.”

“What kind of rumor?”

“Hard to say. I tapped a coded line, I think. But you may have
inherited the corporation’s karma.”

“Great.” He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking I should get out
of here. Go back to Hollywood.”

“Look into your heart, Alfredo. If you can’t find an answer there,
I’ll ask around the networks and see if there’s an opening.”

“Thank you, Seer.”

“Ciao.
And have a nice day.”

The door closed behind her. Alfredo turned to look back at the
sea, and saw Sandy surfing at a more discreet distance. Alfredo watched him for
a while, letting his mind clear. He was about to return to his work, trying to
remember what he’d been up to, when he saw movement out on the water, something
approaching from the shore.

He touched the magnifier on the window and felt a moment’s terror
when he saw what was coming. The fear passed quickly, and in its place was only
resignation.

Signs and omens besieged him. He didn’t have to look into his
heart to interpret them.

It was time to sell the seascraper. Get out of business. Now.

***

The water was choppy, drab, and freezing, but Sandy hardly felt it
in his insulated suit. A pretty good break swept off the northwest corner of
the seascraper. He sat astride his bright green turbo-hyperflex board, counting
the swells, working out the pattern of decent waves, reentering the necessary
trance.

It wasn’t any of his business what Dad did. He was only human. Was
he supposed to stay celibate for the rest of his life because an accident had
taken his mate?

I am here not to judge, but to surf.

He put down his head, knelt close to the board, and shoved his
hands underwater. Tiny, powerful wrist-propellers kicked in, pulling him into
the slurping hollow of a wave. He’d found the prop-gloves in a supply room; the
underwater maintenance crew used them when they went down to scrape windows.

The wave grabbed him. He gripped the sides of the board, jerked
his knees up under him, and got cleanly to his feet.

Yeah!

He shot past a row of windows. This was the weirdest break he’d
ever seen. Secretaries stopped typing; execs paused with coffee squibs at their
lips. Sandy waved, feeling better than zoned now, feeling alive and in the
moment. None of that squashy desk-sitting for him, oh no. Several of the employees
waved back. He couldn’t hear them, but they seemed to be cheering as he surfed
past desks, potted ferns, macrame hangers, monitor screens, job interviewees,
janitors. All stared after him with admiration and green envy in their eyes. .
. .

Gun that board!

He was getting too far ahead of the wave, losing power, falling
into slop. There was a mean snarl to the breakers out here. If he didn’t get
over the lip or pull out in time, he got nailed. Deep water wasn’t necessarily
a cushion. He feared getting whacked against the seascraper.

He wiggled his way back over the crest, just ahead of the
flattening tube, and found himself riding a herd of white and green steeds,
surveying his private sea. He seemed to be floating right up into the sky,
arms extended for balance, Jessie Christ himself in a lime green wet suit.
Maybe he’d do all right in a corp after all, if this was how he got to spend
his days.