Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing
"He's quite mad, you know."
Everyone in the room turned toward Alexis, wishing she hadn't
spoken the words that reflected the depressing conclusion each
of them had arrived at simultaneously in the preceding moments
of discussion.
Jonathan and the Cowboy exchanged a hasty glance which confirmed that neither one of them really wished to be the first to acknowledge that they had made a mistake which might well mean the end of a indeterminate mythology which had served to protect humankind for well over a century…the Circle of Eunuchs.
They were saved from the degradation of having to admit their culpability in this matter, as Priscilla rose angrily from her seat to remove the encrypted HydroCube from the Telsa ground link to the Nowhere Eternity Server.
"Men!" Priscilla bellowed, turning back to face
the antique oak table around which the group had been seated in
heated discussion until the increasingly obvious became the undeniable.
"You have put the whole future…" Priscilla
stopped to correct herself, "…past,"
she continued, "in jeopardy because neither one of you
is capable of using your mind to overcome your penis!"
she spat the word out as if it was a bad taste in her mouth, causing
Jonathan and the Cowboy to break into huge grins, as Jonathan
whispered to the Cowboy, "Feminazi!"
"Don't you dare…" Priscilla hesitated for a moment, almost losing her anger in her amusement over seeing the two men cringe under the weight of her verbal barrage, then continued after nodding to a smiling Alexis, "…try to use a century-old stereotype to try to turn the tables concerning your own descent into some pit of primal slime from the past."
These words caused all of them to be hurtled startlingly into the present, having to face the stunning realization that they had all waded overconfidently and unwittingly into a situation which had buffeted and befuddled each of them in a variety of divergent ways.
"Nuke the Bastards!"
They all jumped out of their skins as Bubba Rom Dos strode
into the room behind them, unexpectedly.
"Damn." they all said, in unison, with Priscilla
clutching at her heart as if it had been struck through with a
deadly arrow.
"Nice to see you all, too." Bubba smiled, sitting
down at the head of the table and pulling a bottle of "Bubba's
Private Reserve" out from under his robe.
"Did I miss anything?" it was obvious that he
had, but he seemed unconcerned about it, in his usual unflappable
way. He poured a shot of Jack Daniel's for everyone present and
sat back, waiting for an update on recent events.
Alexis waved her hand over the recall control, throwing a document up on the HoloGraph in front of Bubba, saying, glumly, "Toto's crazy."
Bubba glanced at the document on the Holograph.
"I know that…" Bubba replied calmly, while pouring another drink, and shaking his head at the rest of those gathered there as if he was mystified as to how they could be so naive.
"No, Bubba. I mean really crazy!" Alexis
added, thinking Bubba didn't truly comprehend the full import
of what she was trying to tell him.
"..as a loon." Priscilla added, referring to
a mythological bird that Bubba himself had been compared to more
than once in his life.
"Nutso…" Jonathan added, to confirm her
point.
"Caw, Caw, see that crow…see that crow!"
Everyone but Bubba jumped out of their seats as the Cowboy
roared out his own personal judgment concerning the state of mind
of the person they had selected as a link to the past, in a last
ditch attempt to extricate the Circle of Eunuchs from an untenable
position in which they faced certain extinction if their plan
to reach back into the annals of time, changing history, came
to an unsuccessful end.
The four members of the Magic Circle sat quietly, looking at Bubba
expectantly, waiting for him to confirm that he now understood
how serious they were about their discovery.
Bubba was way ahead of them…
"Didn't you ever wonder how someone could cut themselves into a thousand pieces with a Stihl chainsaw?" Bubba shook his head in bewilderment, once again, as to how supposedly intelligent individuals such as those sitting before him could be so thick-headed as to need him to explain the obvious to them. They knew he was referring to the alleged suicide of the Author at the close of "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre."
Alexis, Jonathan and Priscilla glanced at one another, to confirm
that they were all suspecting the same thing…they were about
to hear something which was undoubtedly going to make the bad
news they had recently discovered even worse.
The three of them then looked at the Cowboy, who was sitting bent
over, slowly banging his head on the old oak table, shaking it
just enough to create small ripples in their refilled shot-glasses…ripples
which spread to the outside edges of the glasses and then turned
inward, meeting in the middle to disappear into a fresh cycle
of expansion and contraction in which the end becomes the beginning,
and vice-versa, until there is no longer any time nor space, just
the eternal Tao.
"The end of our exploring will be to arrive at where we
started, and to know the place for the first time."
The Cowboy quoted an excerpt from an ancient poet named T.S.
Eliot. It was one that they had all seen in a post by CypherPunk
Jim Choate while researching the history surrounding the beginning
salvos of the InfoWar which had been cut short by the Channel
Revolution, spinning the world instantly into a global crisis
which had caught the CypherPunks off-guard and led to WebWorld
becoming a reality before they had even had a chance to react.
All eyes turned to the Cowboy, who was speaking softly out loud as his mind retraced history one more time, in an effort to rebuild the trail of events which had happened over a century earlier. A trail which they had hoped would lead them to an understanding of the circumstances surrounding an event which had set the tone for the coming battle pitting the Circle of Eunuchs against Gomez and the Dark Allies.
"We verified that it was Toto who was in the room with
the person who slaughtered himself with the chainsaw."
the Cowboy intoned slowly.
"We knew, from 'WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of
Eunuchs,' that the Author had escaped the wrath of Gomez. We also
knew that it was Toto who had been dressed as a Canadian Mountie
when they burst through the door of the motel room in Moose Jaw."
the Cowboy continued.
"And we assumed that the lone Mountie who Gomez's
henchmen took away on a one way trip, for 'debriefing,' was the
Author."
The Cowboy looked up as he felt the sinking feeling taking hold
in the pit of his stomach. He looked at Alexis, whose face was
filled with horror.
"We used the Trei Transponder to link to the digital implant
of a chainsaw murderer?" Alexis cried out, in
despair, as all eyes looked pleadingly at Bubba to tell them it
was not so.
"Well, yes…" Bubba told them, with a shit-eating grin, pausing to let them squirm before continuing, "…but the person who lay slaughtered in the motel room was not the Author. It was one of Gomez's human conspirators. The reason he needed to be so severely mutilated was to prevent positive identification of the body."
All four members of the Magic Circle let out a sigh of relief..
"So Toto was…" Jonathan paused to
correct himself, since their fate, and their life, was now inextricably
linked to this strangely incomprehensible figure from the past,
"…I mean, he is a CypherPunk, and a member
of the Circle of Eunuchs."
All eyes were on Bubba as they awaited his reply.
"Not exactly…" Bubba quoted a rental car
advertisement they had come across in their journey through the
primitive TV archives from that period in time.
Their stomachs began to sink, once again, as they waited for the
bad-news/good-news, cycle to flip over, once again.
"The man who died in that motel room was indeed one of Gomez's human compatriots, but Toto didn't know that."
Bubba waited for the full weight of his statement to sink in,
before continuing. He poured himself another shot of Jack Daniel's
and slid the bottle across the table to the others, and resumed
his account of this twilight moment of history.
"Toto thought that he was slaughtering the Author."
Bubba said with an ironic smirk on his face. "Toto was
a protégé of the Unabomber, and he thought he was
striking a blow against the technological monster that the man
was continually ranting about."
"The Unabomber had sent Toto on this mission in order to eliminate him." Bubba continued, to his wide-eyed audience. "Toto was so crazy that the Unabomber was afraid of him, and he thought he was sending him to a certain death by putting him in the middle of a battle between the Author and Gomez. Instead, Toto escaped by posing as the first Mountie on the scene, and when he was taken into the custody of Gomez's henchmen, then he slaughtered them, as well."
"But there were three bodies found at the scene," Jonathan protested, in vain, "so if the third person wasn't the Mountie, or Toto, as you claim, then who was it?"
Bubba shook his head, sadly. "It was probably some poor
bastard who happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time."
"The Mountie in charge of the murder scene knew that the
fellow being taken away wasn't one of his men. That's why he didn't
put up a protest. When the bodies were discovered, the Mountie
confirmed the body as that of one of his men, as payback for the
Shadow's misguided intention to kill one of his troops."
"And what happened to Toto?" the Cowboy asked, somberly, already suspecting what he was about to hear. He bent slightly forward, and his head was already beginning to move toward the hard surface of the antique oak table, as Bubba confirmed his suspicions.
"He ended up back in the 'Home for the Criminally Insane.'" Bubba said, grinning at the Cowboy's despair, as his head slowly rose and then dropped, banging his forehead into the hardwood again and again.
Jonathan ran for the bathroom, to prayed to the Great Porcelain God. Priscilla fainted. Alexis reached for the bottle of "Bubba's Special Reserve" and grinned at Bubba.
"That's going to be a bit of a sticky wicket, isn't it Bubba?" Alexis said calmly.
"Yes." Bubba replied, shaking his head in wonder
at how a beautiful young lady such as Alexis, with less than half
the life experience of some of the others gathered here, could
somehow manage to be the strongest of the bunch when the shit
hit the fan.
"It's going to be a bit of a sticky wicket."
Bubba echoed, reaching for the bottle as it skittered toward the
edge of the table when the Cowboy began banging his head even
harder than before.
Priscilla and Alexis lay on their cots at the back of the room, talking quietly.
"What's a Feminazi?" Alexis asked, "I think maybe I'd like to be one."
Priscilla laughed and reached out to touch her daughter's hand.
"Maybe you will be, sometime soon." Priscilla's
smile faded, as she said, "Perhaps we both shall."
She looked at Alexis with motherly concern.
"Do you mean that we might start falling under the same influences from the past that Jonathan and the Cowboy seem to be channeling?
"It's not really channeling." Priscilla corrected her. "From what I understand, it is more like a reawakening of some sort of primal instincts, or whatever, that were much more a part of that period of history than they are today. It's not as if we don't carry those mechanisms inside us, as potential, it's just that most of them have been overruled for so long by the mind-control in WebWorld, that those instincts are not something that would normally come to the surface of our consciousness without some sort of outside impetus."
Jonathan had been listening to their conversation as he lay on
his cot, failing in his repeated attempts to fall asleep and forget
about the repercussions that were certain to come from their discoveries
of the preceding few hours.
"We knew that the Trei Transponder would result in the
transfer of mental and emotional qualities, as well as InformEnergy,
but we were certain that the transfer would flow mostly in the
direction of the past. Peter Trei's documentation was incomplete,
but it gave every indication that the laws of entropy would assure
a backwards flow through the space-time continuum.
"We hadn't counted on mental and emotional energy being more
quantum in nature than the more rigidly structured InformEnergy
which was intended to make up the majority of the transfer."
Jonathan shivered slightly, confiding, "When Bubba hollered out, 'Nuke the bastards!' I almost shit my pants. I felt like I was back in 1997, experiencing what Toto was experiencing while reading Tim May's 'Nuke D.C.' diatribes."
Alexis reached out to comfort Jonathan, who was obviously berating
himself for not recognizing that something was terribly wrong
when he and the Cowboy began falling into the increasingly violent
mindset that was increasingly characteristic of the CypherPunks
mailing list at that point in time.
"You can't blame yourself." she said, stroking
his cheek lightly. "You said yourself that the reason
you and the Cowboy were more affected than mother and I was that
the volume of male energy on the CypherPunks list was bound to
influence your subconscious tendencies much more than ours."
"We should have used Blanc Weber." Priscilla broke in.
"Blanc's digital implant was bogus." Jonathan
told the women, much to their surprise. "Blanc worked
at Microsoft," Jonathan explained, "so she had
access to the files concerning the plans for the introduction
of the digital implants into the members of the CypherPunks list.
That's why she was one of the first to receive one, but she had
already used the secret technology she was working on to create
a digital implant that could act as a simulator, feeding back
the correct readouts to the testing module, without affecting
her thinking in the least.
"We could have tried to bypass the simulator, but it would
have been dangerous, since it was based on a predecessor to her
HydroCube technology, and we couldn't be certain that it worked
on the same basic principle."
Bubba and the Cowboy came walking over with a bottle of BSR to share with the others, since it was becoming apparent that no one was going to get much sleep tonight.
"Jonathan," Cowboy said, handing him the shot-glasses as he sat down to roll a cigarette, "how did she manage that? She didn't have the complete technology for infinite data storage at that point in time, did she?"
"No," Jonathan replied, knocking back both shots of Jack Daniel's and handing them back to the Cowboy with a grin, "but she had already managed an exponential increase in memory storage, and the digital implants were tested largely according to checksum. Since the programming was designed to fill each implant completely, leaving no room for a potential Trojan Horse aimed at bypassing its correct functioning, she had more than enough room to place a program that would allow full simulation of the implanted code and yet hide any indication of the existence of the extra memory."
The Cowboy thought about this for a moment, and responded, "Then Blanc was already using potential memory at that time. No wonder she was so successful. Virtual memory was commonly used back then, but it was still based on changing the structure of the memory through programming, to access more potential memory. But once created, the memory existed and could be found by those who were looking for it in their tests and analysis."
"Exactly." Jonathan smiled, happy to be tutoring his former mentor. "The technologists of that era recognized that potential existed, but their mistake was that the majority of them were still stuck in the world of Newtonian and Quantum physics, and thought that they had to create something in order to access the potential. Naturally, in creating new structures, they were merely climbing the quantum ladder one step at a time. They didn't even have the ability to change aluminum to lead, at that time, but they thought they were already tweaking Quantum technology toward its limits."
"Mom always told me that women are smarter than men." Alexis said, giving her a mother a high-five as she mimicked one of the social battles of the era they had been studying.
"Damn." said Jonathan, shaking his head in disgust.
"Two Feminazis."
Everyone had a good laugh, and then the Cowboy changed the subject
to more pressing matters.
"Perhaps we would have been better off waiting for the
NSA to implant Tim May."
"Right." Priscilla laughed, giving the Cowboy a slap on the shoulder. "Like they had volunteers waiting in line to be the first up the hill of an anarchist CypherPunk with a weapons store that made some of the armies of the time look like they were arming themselves with his cast-offs."
"From some of the documents I read, that may have well been the case." the Cowboy said, blushing, realizing that Priscilla was echoing his own reasoning when they had made the decision that they couldn't wait for that eventuality.
"So we're stuck with a homicidal lunatic as our only link to what is now the most important turning point in the history of the Magic Circle." Jonathan moaned, beating his head into his pillow.
"Not necessarily." Bubba spoke, for the first time, rising unsteadily to his feet to begin a grand soliloquy, before falling back ignobly onto his cot.
Everyone laughed at the drunken old fart, and Priscilla went over
to sit beside him, purportedly to hold his hand in support, but
more likely in order to keep him from falling on his ass while
he explained the situation, as he saw it, to his compatriots.
Bubba gave Priscilla a grateful peck on the cheek, and turned
back to face the others.
"It is more than true that there are a multitude of reasons that make Toto a poor choice to serve as our link to that era in time, but there are also a few things about him that we might be able to turn to our advantage."
Bubba now had everyone's full attention, as they realized that their tit was in a wringer, with little room to maneuver in order to attempt extricating it.
"On the downside, he's a fucking lunatic." Bubba paused to let everyone finish wincing.
"He's also a thief, a liar, lazy, a slob, has a scattered mind, a drinking problem, and ingests a variety of what he laughingly refers to as his 'medications,' to the point where he is mentally unstable and a danger to himself and others."
"And a homicidal maniac." Alexis added, knowing that the others were trying to put that fact out of their mind.
"Yes," Bubba thanked her with a nod, "and that may be the largest problem we face in using him as a conduit to attempt changing the course of history.
"The fact of the matter is, this is not generally known
to the authorities of his time, since 'Operation Eunuchs' was
the target of a massive cover-up by Gomez and the Dark Allies.
As a result of that, as well as the fact that the era he lives
in is currently rather lax about allowing the criminal elements
in their society to roam at large, he is able to get weekend passes
from the 'Home for the Criminally Insane' and thus will be beyond
our control during these periods of time.
"Although that particular era in time is much more liberal
than WebWorld in regard to what people can and cannot do without
drawing attention to themselves, there are certain activities
which his society regards as red flags that demand the sort of
attention which could limit his effectiveness as the contact point
in our efforts to reach others of a more rational nature in that
time period
"It appears that he may be using his weekends at his home
in Bienfait, Saskatchewan, to build a nuclear bomb.".
"Jesus!" the Cowboy leapt to his feet. "He can't actually do that, can he?"
"He's crazy, not stupid." Jonathan cut in, adding, "And, off course, if we were to give him a little bit of help…"
The Cowboy yanked the bottle of bourbon out of Jonathan's hand,
not looking very amused by this small bit of humor.
"This is a ball buster." the Cowboy said in all
seriousness. "I can see some kind of hope in the situation
if we can manage to use him long enough to warn the members of
the Magic Circle of his time about the need to start taking action
immediately, but that is going to take time…perhaps too much
time to be of any real effect, especially if someone discovers
what he is planning and turns him in."
Once again, everyone turned to Bubba, hoping that his gift of
loquacious verbiage would suffice to overcome his somewhat faulty
reasoning powers enough to give them some small hope of success
in what seemed to be quickly turning into a highly dubious enterprise.
Bubba Rom Dos, derelict and philosopher, rose to the occasion,
as always, taking the discussion in a completely new direction.
"The Cowboy is right." Bubba said, much to their surprise. "Time is of the essence, and it is highly unlikely that the Circle of Eunuchs of that era is sufficiently distributed throughout society and the computer industry to be gelled into an effective force capable of changing the course of history that brought a premature end to an InfoWar that was over before most of the citizens of that time even realized it had begun.
"There may not be time to turn the potential of the Magic Circle into a reality capable of taking the steps necessary to counter the Dark Allies' plans for seizing overt control of the InterNet, but we may be able to use make effective use of Toto's chief asset in order to shift the battlefront into the hands of those who are capable of making a difference."
"And what, pray tell," Alexis asked in a tone reeking of skepticism, "is this shining attribute of a man who has already publicly declared war on the established authorities of his day, is living in a 'Home for the Criminally Insane' during the week, and is building a nuclear bomb in his basement on the weekends?"
"Yes, pray tell…" the Cowboy added, laughing at Alexis' obvious lack of faith in the grizzled old guru to the terminally inebriated, who was looking smug, instead of perturbed, at her youthful insolence. The Cowboy knew that the old geezer, fortified by the divine liquor of questionable reason, was about to launch them on a journey that would match the mystery and intrigue of even the most tempestuous of their experiences in service of the Magic Circle, to date.
"I know what Toto's most valuable quality is."
Jonathan jumped in with a laugh, as the others turned to listen.
"He's expendable."
"Exactly!" Bubba regaled in Jonathan's quick wit, pouring him a fresh shot of "Bubba's Special Reserve."
"While the old saw is true," Bubba told them,
"that you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit,
it does make mighty fine fertilizer."
"Toto is a loose cannon…one that we can ill afford to
use as a link to that era for any length of time without running
the risk of losing all contact with those who are capable of truly
making a difference in the course of history at that nadir point
in time.
"However," Bubba continued, rising to his feet for
his grand pronouncement, "we can use him as a foil
to provide an impetus for an already established dis-organization
that is already firmly in place to step forward into the breech
and provide a genuine force of opposition to the Dark Forces who
are quickly closing their grip around the freedoms and liberties
that still exist in their time."
"The CypherPunks!" the balance of the increasingly inebriated and drowsy crew shouted out, in unison.
"But how are we going to manage that?" Jonathan
asked, perplexed. "If there was ever a more disorganized,
loosely knit band of vagabonds who ever roamed the face of the
earth, they sure kept themselves well hidden.
"Besides, I sincerely doubt that the CypherPunks are anxiously
awaiting someone from the future ordering them around. Especially
if the only way we have to contact them is through a homicidal
lunatic who most of them don't even consider a true CypherPunk,
just a Johnny-come-lately Carpetbagger."
"I hate to admit it," the Cowboy joined in, "but
I agree with Jonathan that the weak part of your plan consists
of the fact that he is considered by most of the CypherPunks list
members to be a nuisance and a unwelcome pest.
"Even those who bother to read his inane and rambling posts
do so mostly for amusement, and not because he ever seems to have
much of value to say concerning the issues the other list members
are addressing."
"I agree." Alexis added her two cents worth.
"Who the hell on the list is going to listen seriously
to anything he has to say."
Alexis stood up and twisted her body and face into a grotesque
parody of a cross between a hunchback and the village idiot, drooling
as she said,
"Hi. My name is Toto, and I'm the guy who rants obscenely
on the CypherPunks list about things that bear absolutely no relation
to what everyone else is discussing. I'm also the person who forges
posts to the list in your name, making you look like an idiot,
and twisting your words into an anathema to everything you believe
and stand for.
"Oh, and did I mention that I'm receiving messages from the
future through the digital brain implant that NSA gave me as part
of an experiment on the residents of the 'Home for the Criminally
Insane?'
"Well, you troubles are all over now," Alexis continued, as the others rolled on the floor, laughing, "because I'm going to tell all of you CypherPunks what to do in order to save the what remains of the Free World from the Evil Forces who are lurking under my bed and from the Space Aliens who HIDE MY DRUGS!"
By this time, everyone had tears rolling down their cheeks, and were holding their sides in a failing attempt to stop the pain that came from unending laughter. After they had gotten themselves somewhat under control, Priscilla spoke up, addressing the obvious question which hung in the air, waiting to be asked.
"My psychic abilities," Priscilla began, resulting
in another short round of giggles, "indicate that there
are not currently any CypherPunks sitting at home by the phone,
anxiously awaiting a call from Toto to tell them what to do.
"So what is your great plan for turning the mighty CypherPunks
into unwitting shills in our grand game of mystery and intrigue?"
"It's simple." Bubba responded, as if wrestling
anarchist alligators was something that was old-hat to him.
"What is the CypherPunks' worst nightmare?" he
asked the small assembly of still giggling lunatics. He waited
for a moment, receiving no answer, before continuing, "While
it would be foolish to generalize, I would think that high on
the list would be a specific individual emerging as their Chief
Spokesperson. I would think that if it appeared that this possibility
might, in fact, become a reality, then they would be forced to
act to counter this anathema, as they did during the censorship
crisis."
The other members of the Magic Circle stared silently at Bubba, dumbfounded at what he appeared to be proposing.
"You are saying you think that we should try to make Toto the CypherPunks chief spokesperson?" Alexis finally asked.
"No…" Bubba replied, grinning mischievously, "…TruthMonger!"