Slant (26 page)

/ SLANT 159

GODSTREAM I

THE MULTIWAY CHRISTIAN NEWS FIBE

NEWS BLAST: SATAN ON THE MARCH, Edition 216

Hideous sex-selected abortions in India and China have led to the death of 300,000,000 (that's three hundred million) unborn female children. Satan is laughing now! Tens of millions of Chinese and Indian men cannot find wives. Satan is ready for the next step! The governments of India and South China, and even of Northern Enclave China, have caved in to enormous public pressure and are forcing ten million adult men and boys a year to undergo sex change transformations, to become WOMEN! THE SIN OF MURDER BEGETS EVEN GREATER SIN!

Meanwhile, the demand for that Hell-spawned and all-pervasive sin called Pornography (the night-sweats of Onan himself!) in India and China outstrips the rest of the world! Western-produced and now Eastern-produced pornographic material accounts for fully one third of ALL PURCHASES in India and China! Prostitution has always thrived in India, and now is rampant throughout Asia, but the perverse combination of robots and pornography has led to a TENFOLD INCREASE IN PROSTHETUTION, the use of robot sex surrogates! These prosthetutes, also known as whorebots and sexbeiters, are manufactured in Japan and Thailand. Satanic mechanical sex temptresses have been invading our shores and despoiling our youth for over twenty years!

SODOM AND GOMORRAH WERE PIKERS! Can anyone deny that the end is near? BIBLICAL PROPHECY POINTS TO THE REAL ENDTIME! SATAN HOODWINKED US IN 2000 AND AGAIN IN 2048!

JESUS IS RACING TOWARD US LIKE A FIERY LION, AN AVENGING COMET SOAKED IN GASOLINE!

TAP THIS BU'ON TO MAKE AN INSTANT CONTRIBUTION FROM YOUR GOVERNMENT UNEMPLOYMENT FUND. ONLY THE GENEROUS WILL BE LAUGHING WHEN GOD'S WRATH SWALLOWS THE EARTH!

COME TO GREEN IDAHO, GOD'S LAST FOOTPRINT ON EARTH!

Jonathan walks into his wife's hospital room. Pale blue cloth curtains in a circle around the bed ripple with a light breeze scented like a pine forest. There are five other patients in this bloc, but he can hear none of them; no conver-

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sations, no coughing or moaning. Chloe is silent as well. She has eaten breakfast

and stares with grim determination at nothing.

Her body is filled with a new set of monitors, these directed from outside rather than operating autonomously. They are trying to find an explanation for her condition. The probe receiver hangs from the ceiling on a narrow track, and a small cord leads from the receiver to a silver spot behind her left ear. This, he realizes, is a medical-grade plug. It could also be feeding her soothing impulses. Even with her eyes open, she might be asleep.

He almost dreads the possibility she is awake. Walking into her room is

like going before a judge. He has always been very sensitive about criticism, especially from Chloe; he has always been extremely careful not to do anything that might merit her anger.

She does not seem to see him.

"Hello," he says softly. "How are you?"

"Like shit," she snaps and her face tightens, lines dragging the edges of her

lips down. This makes her look much older. She looks like a female villain in

an old Disney vid, hard, sexless, and bitterly angry.

"I've talked to the doctor. She isn't sure what happened."

"Isn't she?" Chloe asks flatly.

"Nobody is. There seems to be something going around."

"Good, Jonathan. Never blame yourself."

Jonathan halts his slow, cautious progress into the room one step from the side of Chloe's bed. She is not well, he tells himself. There will be a lingering aura of her collapse. He will not let himself fall victim to her off-center affect.

"A lot of people are becoming ill," Jonathan says, his voice rough. "Nobody

nows why."

"I'm as healthy as a horse. It's my sou/that has bootprints all over it."

"I know it hurts," Jonathan says, barely a whisper. He starts to take that last step, to stand beside the bed, but she jerks her head and stares at him with the glassy eyes and wooden expression of a puppet. "God damn you," she says flatly.

Jonathan stops. His mouth goes soft and his tongue seems to fill the space behind his jaws, dry and gummy. His eyes close to slits and he can barely see her beyond a light-beading film of tears.

"You've been pushing me since we had Hiram and I'm sick because of it." He can say nothing to this. He tries to tell himself that she is not well, that the woman he loves and who mothered his children, the woman with whom he has slept in bed almost eight thousand times, and with whom he has made love at least two thousand times, would not use these words, this voice. Chloe has become someone else and this person will soon go away.

"What is it?" she asks, breaking the silence of half a minute or more. "Why are you here?"

"I hope you feel better soon." Jonathan looks around for some button to nuh. some cord to pull to call in human help, to keep him from saying

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anything, but the words erupt. The room feels hot. "You had therapy after we met but you didn't tell me." "Why should I?" Chloe asks. '"Why did you need therapy?" "Because I kept wanting men, lots of men, and they kept hurting me," Chloe says. "An excess of #esire. Why should I ever feel desire again?" He sees the chair and turns, sits before his knees go rubbery. Part of him wants to leave immediately and let the professionals treat her; another part is guilty for ever expecting anything from a mother, the mother of his chi/tire, for God's sake, and he knows he deserves this condign punishment. But this has nothing to do with what he says to her. "You've never liked to lose control," he says. "Look what it gets me." She gestures at the bed, the curtains. "I always thought we were partners, that we could be free with each other... I didn't know it was hurting you." She glances at him, pityingly, and to Jonathan that look embodies all the disapproving looks women have ever given him, from the disappointed anger of his mother to a girlfriend telling him he is not for her. Wrathscorn. Jonathan pulls his chair closer. She shifts on the bed. "Please listen," he says. "I'll go soon. Hiram and Penelope want to see you." "Oh, my God. Hiram. He saw what you were doing to me." "Don't," Jonathan says, pulling together all his control. "Listen, Chloe. This is important. No matter what you feel now, it's not real. You've had a thymic collapse. All your therapy gave way at once. I don't think I was responsible for that, but if I was, we have to make our decisions after you're out of the hospital, not now. You need time to rest and recuperate and let the doctors put things back in place. I'm told that won't take more than a week, but . . . the hospital is pretty busy now. The experts may not get to you for a few days. And I want only the best for you. If necessary, I'll take you out of here and find a specialist myself. The best." He swallows and tries to produce spit to wet his tongue, but it will not flow. "I won't come back if you don't want me to... until after you're feeling better." "I've just come awake, that's all." Jonathan takes a deep breath. He knows many things intellectually, that he should not feel anger for these words because they are not truly reflective of the real woman who is his wife. But he can't help thinking of a snail heaped high with salt. An earthworm drying in the summer sun. No love, no sex, cut away from the joys of this Earth; he is a dead man. She closes her eyes. "I need to rest," she says. He stands and turns and parts the curtain. In the passageway beyond, looking at the receding curves of blue curtains beneath the soft glow of the high ceiling, he can't breathe. He stands there making small choking noises until his throat clears and his eyes water. He sounds like a dog with

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and stops his gasping. In the visitors' room, Hiram and Penelope are pale and serious and they sit with hands folded between their knees, as if posed for a photo. Hiram looks up at Jonathan. "She's not feeling very well. She's... saying some bitter things," Jonathan tells them. His children give him looks of total lack of comprehension. Perhaps they are being kind. "I'd like to see her," Penelope says. "We need to talk to her." "She's resting." "We'll wait, father," Penelope says, and looks away. Jonathan agrees. "I have to go now. I'll come back later." "All right," Penelope says. Hiram refuses to look at him. Jonathan kisses them on the tops of their heads and leaves. The hospital building seems airless, hermetic. In the open air, beneath the brilliant clouds and patches of blue sky, he feels no better. Jonathan requests an autobus and waits, stiff and aching, at the sheltered stop. He must walk carefully. He feels naked and vulnerable. His own sanity depends now on a plan to walk safely between close walls of thickly clustered nettles.

PARADISO

PLAYERS: 25,600 GOALS: Gonzo, pLAY-DEFINED STATUS: You are currently in Space 2. Your avatar/face is MASK I. RECORDING. COMPANION: Name and status unknown. Also masked. YOU: I wish there was some way I could explain it to you.., a feeling of perfect peace, of belonging, of knowing where you are and what's expected of you.

COMPANION: I wish I knew what that felt like.

YOU: But you can! You can come join our Spiritual Therapy Group. We're having a chat multiway in fifteen minutes in Space 98.

COMPANION: I've been through all of this before. I've been to chats with dozens of earnest people ganging up on me, and I ask them tough questions, and they all fold and go home. You're just a bunch of self-deluding types, what can I say?

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COMPANION: Sure. Does he talk inside of you? AH the time? Clear as a bell? Does he make sure you never do anything wrong?

YOU: No, He doesn't talk inside me all of the time. He lets me make my own choices, and sometimes I choose wrong.

COMPANION: Well, you don't sound as bad as those others. Are you male or female?

YOU: Let's stick to the point here.

COMPANION: Yeah, well the point is I'm open to god, I really am. I would love to have him talk to me and show me where I should be headed. But I'm sick of waiting. I hate this coy god shit where I have to play some unknown game just to have him talk to me. That's really cruel. I'm here; I need his help. I'm not being defiant or shutting myself out. I just don't hear anything!

YOU: Perhaps you need to listen more carefully.

COMPANION: I AM LISTENING! Why do you think I'm here? I keep coming back here for answers and going away and trying again, and god never talks to me!

YOU: Perhaps He needs a sign from you. Some opening He can use to enter you.

COMPANION: What, I should mend my ways just to have him talk to me? I need him to tell me how to mend my ways! I need guidance! It's getting worse every day, this pain. I thought it was over years ago but it isn't. I need him to help me!

YOU: But you must go to Him! I sense real hostility toward God, toward what He does.

COMPANION: I AM NOT HOSTILE! I AM IN PAIN AND IN NEED, and HE DOES NOT TALK TO ME!

YOU: Can you imagine how many people God must help every day? Some may be in even greater need than you.

COMPANION: God is all-powerful! If he doesn't talk to me, it's either because he hates me and thinks I am unworthy, or he doesn't exist, and you and all the Christians are lying.

YOU: I think perhaps you aren't readym

STATUS INTERRUPT: Your companion has withdrawn from Paradiso. You have not succeeded in gaining a convert. Your free time in this area has not been increased; please try again!

8

Mary Choy knows the PD center and all its sounds and smells and pays little attention to them, but one area stands out: in the corner of the broad flat dispatch room, under a gray shield to prevent interference from the bright sunshine pouring through the glass east wall, a city X-flow medical response chart has gone into the red on suicides. A captain and two other social beat officers are standing around the display, stunned into silence. Mary walks up beside them; Nussbaum isn't in his office yet, won't be for five minutes, she has the time to join in their shocked wonder. "It's gone north through Snohomish, West Seattle, East Corridor, Central Corridor," the captain of the social beat says to the governor's office in Olympia through a pad touch. "We have stats coming in from hospitals and onsite medicals. They're way in the red, highesr I've ever seen." "We have reports throughout the state," the assistant social secretary returns, her voice audible to all around the display. "In the past two weeks we've had eight hundred and ninety suicides. That's up over seven hundred percent." "It's a goddamned catastrophe," the captain's second murmurs, then turns to Choy with a defensive look. "Slumming, ma'am?" "I don't think social is going to get blamed for this," Mary says. ma'am?" The is stretched. "We do outreach.

don't,

clearly

you

man Why didn't we know? Where's our ass going to be when the mayor and the governor do their news feed?" "Sorry," Mary says. "Any clues from lock and key?" asks the third, the youngest of the group. Lock and key is PD slang for criminal division, Nussbaum's territory, and now, hers. "Not on my watch," Mary says. "Then leave us to our misery," the second snaps, and Mary departs. She's stepped on their toes, and they're in a mood. Best to take the same feed in Nussbaum's office; he won't mind, and she has a hunger for city facts and trends, however incomprehensible. She does not have time to switch Nussbaum's feed to the X-flow chart before he plunges through the entrance curtain, two cups of coffee in hand, and pushes between two coil chairs to plop into his own highback. The chart comes on as he hands her one of the cups. Mary sips sparingly; coffee does not sit well with her transform reversal. Nussbaum stares at the stats as they adjust and flow.

/ SLANT 165 "It's a stochastic flux," Nussbaum says dismissively. "Social can take ir. We have a couple of problems of our own. Grand Jury emulator from our INDA says we should have no trouble getting indictments for our psynthe murders, against both the caretaker and the go-between. But I'm not happy. Our chief suspect on the finance side is dead. Fore-path confirms suicide--and the trail stops cold. Worse, we probably couldn't indict Crest even if he was alive. All we have are little guys. Anything from the whore?" Nussbaum looks hopeful. Mary shakes her head. "Her name is Alice Grale. She's a vid star. She says her agency sent her on a call-in." "Jesus, makes me wish prostitution was still illegal." Mary acknowledges that sentiment, though she does not necessarily share it. "She's going through her options now, legal and otherwise. I'm going to make a personal call later. Meanwhile, the Crest estate--two daughters, an ex-wife and three lawyers--is refusing to turn over the apartment vids, but I think we can show cause. But.. "Her voice trails off and her fingers fidget on the edge of Nussbaum's desk. "What?" Nussbaum asks. "I've been looking through Crest's public records on investment strategies, posted with his business license. His style was to set up blinds, very thorough; he probably did not want to know what was happening with that share of his investment money. After his divorce--" "He was divorced?" "Three days ago. Very quiet. He settled a generous portion on his wife, and his kids are set for life." Nussbaum looks glum. "More reasons for him to kill himself." "The last year or so, he made a point of going into risky high-return ventures. He danced a real tightrope on some of them." "So, he had a guilty conscience about a lot of things." "Our trail leads up to his blind, no further. He probably did not know he was into Yox psynthe porn. He was investing in Yox in general, his personal books say... No matter that he's sole investor. The go-between is his hidden hand and shield." Nussbaum taps his cup lightly on the desk. "So your point is?" "He wasn't feeling guilty about dead psynthe girls." Nussbaum pooches out his lips and says, "I was afraid you were going to say that." "He didn't know," Mary adds. "Yeah, yeah. Typical high comb money wanker. Let's assume he didn't. Is he like the rest of these suicides? Something goes wrong in his head and he drops a fate of hyper-caff?"