Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997 Pearl Publishing
Priscilla
"Lordy, lordy, Bubba.", Priscilla half-protested, "Are
you sure that it's not something else?" She knew that it
wasn't, so she did not wait for a reply before violently protesting.
"No, it can't be! It's not right! I won't allow it…not
in a million years. She's too young…It's too dangerous…Surely
he can't expect…
"He doesn't even suspect," Bubba pointed out, "so he is not 'expecting' anything of Alexis."
Bubba knew that pointing out the obvious was fairly useless when confronted with a mother's rightful concern over her daughter quite possibly facing a destiny which would surely thrust her directly from the pangs and throes of puberty into trials and tribulations that would sorely test the strength and wisdom of the most mature of souls fated to play a role in the great battle taking shape to bring a final determination of the path of human evolution.
"She's just a girl, Bubba." Priscilla was weeping,
now-resigned to, but not accepting, her daughter's destiny, should
she choose to follow it, to become a major participant in a legendary
movement whose history was strewn with many more sacrificial lambs
than vanquishing heroes.
"She's just a little girl." Priscilla looked with sadness
on her precious young daughter, who was oblivious to the discussion
between her mother and the wizened sage who had been responsible
for seeing her through the many odd twists and turns of life during
her formative years.
Bubba Rom Dos leaned forward and tapped Alexis lightly on the
forehead, and she answered the question which remained unspoken,
naturally, without noticing that she was speaking from an inner
point of her being.
"I suppose that the Cowboy is, realistically, much too old
for me. For us to have a physical relationship, I mean. I think
that I scared him the last time he came to visit Bubba."
Alexis laughed at the thought of her scaring the legendary
Cowboy, and then, to the surprise, partial delight, and
extreme consternation of Priscilla, threw her head back and laughed
the full, hearty laugh of a mature woman who knew that
her femininity and, what's more, her presence, had indeed
scared the hell out of a fully-grown, mature member of the male
species.
"Oh, Alexis. My darling Alexis."
Priscilla had thrown her arms around her daughter, and she was now bawling like a baby over what she knew would shortly be the passing of her daughter from pre-pubescence to maturity, with her adolescence being abridged for the sake of a destiny which was closing too quickly upon all of humanity to pause long enough to allow a beautiful young girl to taste all of the flavors of youth that should have rightfully been hers, as a matter of normal human evolution.
Bubba tapped Alexis lightly on the forehead, once again, and she saw, clearly, what the Cowboy had seen, but without confusion and wonder as to the meaning of the sense of connection she felt between them.
"Oh, my! Oh, my poor, sweet mother, don't feel sorry for
me."
Alexis hugged her mother close to her, trying to reassure her
that all was well, that all was as it should be (though
the realization of what lay before her was rather startling,
given the abrupt change of direction that it meant in her life).
She then consummated her entry into the maturity of full womanhood
by exclaiming what women have uttered from time immemorial upon
truly discovering that 'a man', their man, has entered
into their life.
"What the hell is wrong with him, mother? You'd think I was some strange creature from another planet, or something. He just looked at me, like I was some kind of problem that he couldn't figure out! If he had any sense, any sense at all, he would have swept me into his arms, kissed me passionately, and declared to one and all how blessed he was to have such a wonderful woman like me in his life."
Priscilla was now laughing through her tears, ready to accept
that her precious young daughter-having discovered for herself
the ultimate folly of the male species, the folly of being confused
by the obvious in matters pertaining to the linking of their heart
and their soul to the yin of their yang-had made the leap from
girlhood to womanhood without stumbling in the slightest.
"He's a man, dear. That's what's wrong
with him."
Priscilla and Alexis looked at each other, woman to woman, for the first time, and then looked at Bubba, to see if he had any objections to raise concerning their profound insights into the state of the male species.
Bubba, remaining loyal to the unwavering tradition of true men down through the ages, ignored the challenge to fight against unwinnable odds against a superior opponent, and simply raised his shot-glass to his lips while shaking his head and muttering, under his breath, "Women…"
Priscilla and Alexis looked at one another, and shared a hearty, womanly laugh, and hugged one another, once again.
Insanity Again
I was trying to explain the concept of 'insanity' in WebWorld. I got sidetracked again, but I think I've explained enough of the history of the 500 Channels and the evolution of WebWorld that I can now make myself clear.
WebWorld never went back to unlimited broadcast of
the 500 Channels. By the time the Channel Governments and their
citizens had all established their own intrinsic Bill of Rights,
the CG's delays had given them time to accomplish the true purpose
of their shrewd maneuvering.
The populace was now oriented to a Channel based mental paradigm,
as opposed to the previous world order's geographical model of
cultural affinity.
The transformation was complete. Thanks to the hypnotizing power of the 'Tube', and the extraordinary information compilation and communication capability of the InterNet, it had taken a matter of months rather than generations to completely capture the hearts, minds, and bodies of the populace on a level never before accomplished.
Total world-domination.
No, the control was not entirely complete. The 500 Channel reign
was not yet unequivocally omnipotent, but it would soon be time
for the GrandMaster to be revealed.
But excuse me, please…I digress.
Each Channel Society, had their own culture, beliefs and values consolidated around a central nucleus of group-mind as it had rarely been since the time of primitive tribes striving for survival against the primal forces that ruled the environment they found themselves thrown into from the instant they began their earthly existence.
Evolution had returned full-circle, and mankind was face to face with a new dawn of the bicameral mind they had shared at the time of their first appearance upon the material realm.
There was still a substantial vestige of underlying, ingrained evolutionary patterns that were inherent in the populace in general-patterns that might lead one to 'stray from the herd' if they were indulged in to even the slightest extent. Certain individuals, in particular, had to be culled from the rank and file in order to avoid the possibility that they might 'contaminate' the others.
Many people originally tried getting around the Unitary Channel Circumscription Law, but TV was, by this time, both visual and sound interactive. Whoever you were looking at on the 'tube' was, in all likelihood, 'looking back'. Anyone who attempted to watch a Channel other than their Home Channel was generally apprehended immediately. Most of the 'wayward sheep' were brought into line quite easily by a few days of exposure to the Unitary Rehabilitation Channel. The potentially more serious misfits were culled rather quickly and sent to psychiatric facilities for an extensive, in-depth cerebral adjustment.
Each institution graded their inmates at various
levels, according to the amount of treatment they needed (and
their potentiality for 'infecting' less wayward inmates), and
they were then separated accordingly.
The few cases that were deemed to be hopelessly incurable were
quarantined at Level Eleven status with no treatment administered
and no possibility of release…ever.
There was no thought of execution, the current scientific judgment being that, upon death, the mental energy of the inmate's ethereal body would return to the group-mind pool (due to the strong magnetic-gravitational pull engendered by the current level of homeostasis that had been achieved in the group-mindset of the general populace), and this would contaminate the unity that had already achieved.
The injurious and frightful disruption of the InterNet system (which was commonly referred to as the 'Parker Paradox', a nickname given to the event by the Computer Cowboy History Channel), was still viewed by the Channel hierarchy with much trepidation, as they had seen the results that could come from even a trivial inaccuracy in an otherwise impeccable macrocosm.
They had never managed to discover the Cowboy's secret in regard to the resolution of the Parker Paradox and, truth be known, they actually had no idea what the nature of the problem really was.
The long and short of the situation was this: For all of their success in accomplishing an unprecedented mastery over the overwhelming majority of mankind, the Channel hierarchy still had an instinctual, gut-level feeling that, despite their having managed to get their cards 'all-in-a-row', as the saying goes, there was still a 'wild card' in the deck-and they had no idea who, what, or where it was.
The one thing that they were sure of was that the Cowboy made them very, very nervous.
Operation Eunuchs
When it became obvious that their clandestine surveillance of the Cowboy wasn't going to yield any positive results, Channel Security had him picked up and brought to Antiquity Channel Headquarters for questioning.
An InterNet worker named D'Shauneaux, one of the
original citizens of the 'Wired, Weird & Crazy' Channel (which
later became simply the Crazy Channel at the close of Channel
War II), happened to remark to a coworker that his grandfather,
an eccentric old warrior who had worked at the InterNet in the
Before Channel era, had often entertained him late into the night
with fascinating tales of his clandestine work as head of the
InterNet's internal security force.
The worker had mentioned to a supervisor that the Cowboy's designation
of the source of the InterNet's system crisis as being due to
the 'Parker Paradox' had reminded him, strangely enough, of a
reference his grandfather had made to the final stages of the
Circle of Eunuchs investigation that took place shortly before
the advent of the Channel era.
It seems that "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre",
an obscure and cryptic manuscript that had started the whole mythological
legend of the Magic Circle, had been traced in origin to a small
computer company in Tucson, Arizona, located in the Southwestern
region of the United States of America.
The company turned out to be a one-man operation named "Pearl
Harbor Computers, Inc.", run by a Canadian 'frostback' whose
mentality lay somewhere along the borderline between 'terminal
inebriation' and the 'lunatic fringe'. Pearl Harbor's company
motto was "We've been bombed since 1941".
D'Shauneaux's grandfather, who was actually a high-ranking computer security official at both the Pentagon and the National Security Agency, was the chief executive officer assigned to lead a highly classified investigation that was officially designated 'Operation Eunuchs'.
Upon discovering the origin of the manuscript, Vice-Admiral
D'Shauneaux came to the conclusion that the investigation had
consumed a massive number of man-hours, huge sums of money, and
had squandered an extensive array of precious resources on the
military equivalent of a 'snipe hunt'.
He dashed off a scathing report to the Deputy Director of the
Pentagon castigating everyone that had been involved in mounting
"this preposterous operation" and forwarded it to the
Pentagon by ordinary email via the InterNet.
Two hours later D'Shauneaux found himself in Washington, DC, marching
into the Chief Director's Office, and flanked by two MP's who
had been ordered to shoot his sorry ass if he so much as blinked
on the flight back to Headquarters. He got a blistering dressing-down
by the Chief Director that left him trembling from the tips of
his toes to the hair on his chinny-chin-chin.
Vice-Admiral D'Shauneaux was told, in no uncertain terms, that he was to get his butt back to Arizona, track down the President of Pearl Harbor Computers, Inc., and immediately bring him directly back to the Deputy Director at Pentagon Headquarters.
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND 'IMMEDIATELY'? DO YOU UNDERSTAND 'DIRECTLY'? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT IF YOU FUCK THIS OPERATION UP IN THE SLIGHTEST, MOST MINUTE DETAIL, THAT YOU WILL BE ORDERED TO BLOW YOUR OWN FUCKING HEAD OFF IN FRONT OF YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND NEIGHBORS? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I'LL CUT THE BALLS OFF YOUR USELESS, DECREPIT CARCASS ON THE 'PRIME TIME NATIONAL NEWS CHANNEL' IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE GODDAMN NATION?
"DO…YOU…UNDERSTAND???"
He understood.
When Air Force One set down in Arizona, there was
a gentleman waiting for them at the airport who was 'under orders'
from the Deputy Director to accompany Vice-Admiral D'Shauneaux
constantly until completion of Operation Eunuchs. The man didn't
bother to introduce himself, so D'Shauneaux mentally named him
'The Shadow'.
D'Shauneaux had an uneasy feeling about the man. He suspected
that this fellow, judging from his demeanor, had both the authority
and disposition to give the Deputy Director the same kind of dressing-down
that the Vice-Admiral himself had received from the Chief Director.
According to Vice-Admiral D'Shauneaux, they tracked their quarry down in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, a province in Western Canada (although legend has the event taking place in Davidson, several hundred miles to the north), leaving the siege of the sleazy motel where he was staying in the capable hands of an elite branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, whose unofficial motto was "we always get our man".
They got him all right…in a thousand pieces.
The scene was so gruesome that even the veteran, hard-bitten Mounties
involved in the operation had difficulty keeping their lunch from
hitting the floor.
The man had slaughtered himself with a Stihl chainsaw, leaving behind a scene of savage brutality that made the barbarous atrocities of the Nazi holocaust pale by comparison. He had butchered himself, piece by piece, leaving body parts and fragments of mutilated flesh scattered in every part of the room.
The assault team had heard the clamor from three
blocks away and immediately abandoned their well-laid plans, throwing
themselves into a full-scale impromptu offensive on the motel,
scaring the bejesus out of the dozen or so residents of the other
rooms, who were already shaking in terror from the man's plaintive,
mind-numbing screams.
The first Mountie through the door had discovered a cryptic message
written in blood on the wall by the bed. The 'Shadow' ordered
everyone out of the room and separated the young Mountie from
the rest of the group. When the Shadow's colleagues showed up,
minutes later, he had two of them take the lone Mountie away,
supposedly for 'debriefing', but D'Shauneaux had a feeling that
the man was being transported to a destination that only required
a one-way ticket.
The Shadow's crew was quick and efficient, moving
to secure the motel and delegating to the Mounties the task of
isolating the motel guests from one another for individual interrogation.
The Shadow's team leader nodded almost imperceptibly towards the
remaining Mounties, raising his eyebrows slightly and looking
to the Shadow for a cue. The Shadow, just as indiscernibly, nodded
back a 'no'.
It looked like the rest of the Mounties would make it home tonight.
D'Shauneaux had watched, out of the corner of his
eye, the reaction of the Mounties' squad leader when his junior
officer had been sent for 'debriefing'. His total lack of reaction
told D'Shauneaux that he understood the situation perfectly. His
explicit instructions to the remainder of his assault team to
'carefully' follow the instructions of the Shadow's team sent
everyone involved the message that further 'debriefings' would
be neither necessary nor wise.
It was obvious to D'Shauneaux that the Shadow's superiors had
ordered the termination of everyone involved in the assault. It
was equally obvious that the Shadow had the experience and discernment
to understand that it was not worthwhile to risk a 'messy' situation
in order to eliminate individuals who had so little knowledge
of what was really going on here.
The Shadow nodded to the Vice-Admiral and they headed
towards the limo. A short time later they were back aboard 'Air
Force One'.
The ride back was silent, totally silent. D'Shauneaux and the
Shadow rode alone in the executive cabin that was normally reserved
exclusively for the President of the United States. The Vice-Admiral
got the distinct impression that this was not the first time the
Shadow had sat at the seat of power.
D'Shauneaux mixed himself a scotch and water, sipping
it slowly as he allowed himself to relax for the first time since
he had left the Chief Director's office early that morning. He
sat in quiet contemplation, resting his gaze abstractly on the
Shadow (who was observing D'Shauneaux with a penetrating, focused
attention that saw everything and missed nothing).
The Shadow was deciding whether or not to kill him, and he knew
D'Shauneaux was waiting, with unruffled composure, for his decision.
Twenty minutes before their scheduled landing the Shadow spoke
to Vice-Admiral D'Shauneaux, saying, "It looks like you were
right. There is no Magic Circle. This whole operation has been
a ridiculous waste of time."
The Shadow got up and mixed himself a drink. D'Shauneaux
knew that he, too, would be going home tonight.
D'Shauneaux had been ordered to report back to the
Deputy Director immediately upon his return but the Shadow told
him, in a calm and quiet voice, to go home, get some sleep, and
return to his duties at the InterNet the following day.
D'Shauneaux instinctively knew that the Deputy Director would
not be going home that night. As it turned out, everyone connected
in the slightest way to Operation Eunuchs, with the sole exception
of Vice-Admiral B. D'Shauneaux, was 'debriefed' over the next
few days.
Over fifteen hundred people were on the Shadow's 'list'. And only
one survived.
Bubba D'Shauneaux, who would later write the Addendum
to the (as yet uncompleted) manuscript of "The Xenix Chainsaw
Massacre", went home, had a shower, laid down in bed and
contemplated the loss of his closest and dearest friend…the
former President of Pearl Harbor Computers, Inc., Tucson, Arizona.
Then he drifted off to sleep.
Oh yes, by the way. The man's name…the man in the motel room…the former President of Pearl Harbor Computers, Inc.
His name was Parker.
C.J. Parker.
Chapter 12 - Priscilla / Chapter 13 - Insanity Again / Chapter 14 - Operation Eunuchs