Kalifornia (9 page)

Then a whole ‘nother weirdness intervened to drag him back to
earth, or at least to ocean. Take a guess.

Sandy
slipped from the precarious safety of his
board, came up sputtering with the taste of oil and iodine in his mouth. He
dog-paddled, waiting for the board to home in, circle back, and pick him up.
Then he clambered on quickly, got to his knees, and looked east to the coast.

Boats.

Not the usual commuter crowd of water taxis and ferrycraft. Too
early in the day for that. These sped and bounced recklessly over the waves;
something about them made him think, “Pirates.” Maybe it was the cannons they
carried.

Sandy
dipped his arms in the water and aimed south,
skizzing along the eastern face of the ‘scraper. The water was all dimples and
bumps, rising and falling. He kept low, hidden from most of the boats. He
couldn’t have seen more than a fraction of the flotilla. The whine of many
motors, the shouts of passengers, carried out to him on the seaward wind.

Ominous forebodings oppressed him. One lone surfer against a whole
fleet of pirates? Another battle for the history shows.

He pressed the intercom button in the nose of the board. “Corny?
Hey, Corny, you there?”

The speaker crackled; water buzzed and danced on it. “Yes, Sandy?”

“Have you taken a look at the coast recently?”

“I have.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“We’re not certain what is going on. I’m waiting for orders from
your father.”

“How about at least giving me a warning? I can’t see anything down
here, Cornball. Bring the sling around and haul me up quick.”

Schools of silver fish darted randomly beneath him, scattering
like drops of mercury near the face of the building. Sandy looked east again,
shading his eyes. Here came the boats, ripping up the water, maybe doing
permanent damage. He gazed straight up and saw Cornelius working the crane,
swinging the boom over the edge, lowering the sling. By the time it hit the
water, Sandy was ready to give up the board and dive. The boats sounded like
water hornets about to sting. He grabbed the sling, hooked it to the snag in
his wet suit, and clicked the board on to a separate catch. Instantly he started
to rise, twirling.

From midair, in the eastward-facing arcs of his spin, he saw fifty
or sixty small to medium boats, some with long silver cannons in the prows, all
of them crammed with passengers. As they approached the seascraper, they split
up like minnows surrounding a log.

Cornelius pulled Sandy onto the roof. A crack team of
sealmen—building security—poured up from the parking garage and stripped off
their clothes, revealing oily, dark fur. Their lean, muscular torsos were
crisscrossed by harnesses holding holsters and knife sheaths.

He’d watched them performing calisthenics on the rooftop in the
mornings, singing anthems, but he’d never seen them in action. For a moment he
worried about the people in the boats.

“You going in with ‘em, Corny?”

Cornelius shuddered, eyeing the water with distaste. “I can’t
swim.”

Sandy
shook his head. “And you call yourself a seal?”

“An exile.”

The leader of the sealmen barked an order and they all leaped over
the side. Sandy jumped to the low wall and watched them dive. Graceful brown
bodies sliced into the water, rippled along beneath the surface. The sight was
breathtaking, despite the nautical menace.

But what exactly were the boats threatening?

As if in response to his thoughts, the boats settled down. After
the engines quieted, the passengers began to unfurl huge sail-like banners. At
first they were a mass of wrinkles, but then the wind caught them and snapped
them open.

Sandy
read the
bold words aloud:
“WIRES FOR WORKERS!
BROADCASTS ARE BROADENING! IF YOU’RE NOT LIVE, YOU’RE DEAD!”
He looked at Cornelius in bewilderment.

“Now hear this!” came an amplified voice. A man stood up in the
prow of the largest boat; there were speakers taped to his hips and a mike at
his lips. “The time has come for workers to share in the wires. Eight hours of
deadtime is a daily crime—worse than murder. It cuts you off from the world!”

This was true in a way, though Sandy had doubts about its
illegality. Office buildings were partially excluded from the net. Computer and
communication links were allowed, but commercial broadcasts were jammed except
in emergency tests, when shrill, bone-jangling alarms were allowed to paralyze
everyone. It wasn’t effective to allow employees to space in on their favorite
programs while they were supposed to be working. Who could concentrate on two
or more worlds at once? The office receded from consciousness as more compelling
subjects filled the mind. Work suffered, poor thing. Some companies had
invested in a mild form of random sensory stimulation—a kind of full-body
Muzak—but this had been linked to an increase in nervous disorders. Wire
silence was safer.

The man in the boat kept ranting: “We come to sanctify our
challenge with a sacrifice! Together, we have the power to stop you corporate
tyrants. Against us, you are nothing!”

“Is he talking to me?” Sandy asked.

In the next instant, a series of closely spaced blasts shook the
air, frightening gulls from perches on the edge of the tower. Smoke streamers
burst from the cannons, trailing fire and ashes. Sandy panicked, nearly leaping
for the safety of the sealman-filled sea. But the smoke announced nothing more
lethal than itself; it didn’t even stink. The air above the boats turned black,
impenetrable, while the building itself remained untouched. He waited for the
wind to wisp away the clouds, but it was dense stuff. As they waited to see
what the demonstrators were up to, the silence grew.

Finally, a few at a time, the boats bobbed out of the murk.

Empty now. There was no sign of the protesters. The sealie
shock-troops dog-paddled in place, in lieu of any more decisive action.

“Where’d they go?” Sandy screamed down at the head seal.

“Down!” the sealman shouted back.

Sandy
bolted for the elevator. It dropped a few
moments, then stopped to allow his father to board.

“Did you see?” Alfredo asked.

“Some of it,” Sandy said.

The elevator continued to fall.

Alfredo shook his head; actually, his whole body was shaking. “I
never had enemies till now.”

“They’re not your enemies,” Sandy said. “They’re your fans. You
didn’t set the seascraper policies.”

“I—I just want to be loved.”

“We all do,” Sandy said.

“My public . . .”

“I know. That’s them out there.”

The doors opened on a dark, hushed corridor. Down the hall, a
crowd pressed up to a broad window, all staring out into the luminous green
water. Space was made for Sandy and Alfredo.

Outside, the demonstrators were sinking past in slow motion. Now Sandy saw what had been hidden from him on the surface. Each protestor was wrapped in
chains, draped with heavy weights. Around his ankle a boy no older than Ferdi
wore a manacle attached to a length of chain that was fastened to the sort of
double-barbed anchor Sandy had seen only in tattoos and Popeye cartoons. Most
of the drowners were Sandy’s age or younger. He marveled in a horrified way at
their selfless dedication, their youthful devotion to such a foolish, fatal
cause. With mouths and eyes wide open, they calmly and deliberately drowned for
the right to bear wires. He wondered what programs they were experiencing in
these last precious viewing moments; he hoped the shows were good ones.

They could be watching me, he thought. In reruns, but me all the
same. Maybe I should be out there with them, putting my life on the line for
the wires. Hell, those same kids made me rich and famous. What did I ever do
for them? Sure, we had a few laughs, shed a few tears. Big deal.

Did I ever die for anybody?

He had plenty of time to think such thoughts. The protestors sank
so goddamned slowly.

Sandy
’s breath fogged the glass. How ironic that he
should be wasting it on a windowpane, taunting the drowners with the nearness
of so much oxygen. Not that they noticed. Their eyes were fixed on some other
scene.

“Sandy,” his father croaked, breaking him out of his trance.
Alfredo sounded sick. “We have to go deeper. We have to . . . to
witness this. They’re doing it for us—as well as to us.”

The elevator carried them much, much deeper this time. Work in the
depths went on as usual; no one had yet received word from above, though phones
were starting to buzz. With the arrival of the Figueroas, hands froze in
midmotion, conversations broke off. The floor manager left her platform and
approached with a broad smile. Father and son ignored her, going straight to a
window. Sandy peered into the dark water.

“Good afternoon,” the manager said. “Is this a surprise
inspection?”

Alfredo silenced her with a gesture. There were shapes out there, Sandy thought, but it was too dark to be certain.

Suddenly a lantern ignited beyond the glass, lighting the drowned
features of a dark-skinned woman. No life remained in her eyes. Sparkles
glinted on the chains that dragged her down. The spotlight was her own, and it
lit a long plastic banner that slowly unfurled in the water above her, pulled
taut by the weight of her descent. The banner read: VOTE YES ON PROP. 5,997!

Other lamps began to flicker on here and there, above and below,
and other banners sprouted and streamed like kelp throughout the surrounding
sea. The whole floor crowded to the glass. Sandy backed away, irrationally
fearing that the windows would shatter and sweep them out to join the dead . . . or
sweep the dead right in.

Alfredo’s fingers closed on Sandy’s arm. “I can’t take any more.
They’re all . . . all like children to me.”

They are your children, Sandy thought. You were a father to most
of them. Which makes them my brothers and sisters. Some of them might even be
me. Right now, as they die, as the brain blacks out, while wires carry a last
little spark of life . . . they could be dreaming that they’re
good old Sandy Figueroa—dying. Poor Sandy. Poor everyone.

Minutes later, when they joined Cornelius on the roof, they found
the security sealmen gathering the protestors’ boats before they could drift.

“Let’s get out of here, Corny,” Sandy said. “You want a ride,
Dad?”

Alfredo shook his head. “I think I’ll be heading for home. Hollywood. I want to straighten
out . . . 
a few
things. Sandy, I . . . I don’t want you taking over here.
It’s not our line of work. You know, I’m not even sure what this company does;
but I do know it’s not worth . . . this.” He made a futile,
cramped gesture at the waves. “I’m going to sell—no
—give
it away. To the families of these people, if they have any.”

Finally, he bowed his head and wept.

Sandy
turned away. He didn’t know what to think or
feel. No models existed for this scenario. Probably not even Danny Bonaduce, as
bad as things got, had ever seen anything like it.

***

Cornelius steered landward, unspeaking, in the mint green
Jaguaero, leaving Sandy the peace he needed to sort through his thoughts. At
first he couldn’t find any at all. His soul felt like a lidless eye. Shock had
laid him open to a barrage of marrowbursting wire shows—explosive sounds,
morbid colors, and what was worse, the cloying NutraSweetness of public therapy
channels, which tormented him with inappropriately mild advice and tranquil
images. “Love yourself. Love your neighbor. Let Dr. McNguyen show you how. . .
.”

News shows clamored about the sudden rash of suicide squads offing
themselves all over the state. He shut them out and tuned to a peace station,
whose signal was a mellow brass gong that hummed unvaryingly but achieved
intense harmonics behind his eyes. Every cell began to vibrate. Maybe he needed
a nap.

Cornelius cleared his throat. “Would it be appropriate to ask
where we’re going?”