Cure for Sanity - Chapter Ten

Cure for Sanity - Chapter Ten - Welcome to Gortician



Pex returned to the shelter and began to gather his things. William noticed and walked over to chat.



"Leavin', then?" he asked.



"Indeed. I'm going to be very busy soon. A lot of traveling. Here," he said, handing him his hiptop unit. "I want you to have this."



He wrote down the address of a small electronics company on the east end and handed that to Prince William as well.



"Take that to this address. Have an engineer look at it, and they'll buy it. It's worth millions. Don't take less than a hundred pounds."



Willie's eyes opened wide. Not at the millions, but at the possibility of a hundred pound note. The electronics firm was the one that would release the design twenty years later. At least he didn't seem to doubt Pex in the least. It was comforting to know. A small glimmer of hope for humanity.



"Tell me something before you go."



Pex knew he was referring to his grand unified theory of absolutely everything, a work in progress. Prince Willie was the only non-player character he'd encountered that actually seemed to hear him when he spoke. He was probably an earpiece for Prail, he thought.



"Well, for one thing. Dinosaurs! They're here, today. Right outside."



For the first time, the prince looked skeptical.



"Birds!" Pex said, unable to contain himself. "Imagine yourself as a bug for a moment. Here. I'll help."



A moment later, Prince Willie said, "Don't ever do that again."



"Sorry," Pex said. "But you understand, right?"



"No."



"They're allies."



"Allies?"



"Against the insectoid collective!"



Even the steady-keeled prince began to suspect that Pex was mad.



"Insectoid collective?"



"The hive mind!"



"What's that, then?"



"We'll, let's just say that they advocate a certain lifestyle. One without individuals."



"Eh?"



"Angry birds versus bugs. You're seeing the battle right now, forever. And, here's the tricky bit: as filtered through the minds of children."



"Children, you say?"



"Sure. All of your major wars, battles, what have you, are fought by children. They're...transported. A thrown rock becomes a bullet. It really limits casualties. Anyway, a lot more of your world is shaped by the dreams and fears of children than you would think. Give it a pass through their imaginations, and suddenly dinosaurs roamed the Earth because we say they roamed the Earth.



"And you can feel it, if you try. Sense it. Confirm it. Dinosaurs!"



"Bollocks," Willie said.



"Indeed. That's what they said, 'This is bollocks.' They couldn't hang around as implausibly large reptiles, so they did some market research, had an image makeover."



"Why are they angry?"



"The kids, or the birds?"



Prince William shrugged.



"Maybe it's the time they spend as birds. Too unstructured, to some. So there's only his now, as far as you're concerned, and a bunch of misremembered echoes. Imagine World War Two from the perspective of lice. They're killed with Zyklon-B today. Not too happy about it, either. Still," Pex continued, talking more to himself than Willie, "Violating the treaty, aren't they?"



Pex didn't want to tell him the part about using their imaginations to generate cheap Hollywood effects, less Prince William think him odd. He was beginning to feel the part of political schemer.



He decided to take it out on Prail. He had an idea for a mischievous little hack that he hoped would get her attention.



"Well, I'm off," Pex said.



Prince Willie silently agree. He rubbed his eyes as he watched his strange friend step through the doorway and disappear.




###


 Janique entered the atmosphere of Gortician as a ball of flame, touching down feet-first as she extinguished herself. The long-sleeping planetary defenses has awakened to find they were powerless, and so pulled the covers over their heads and resumed monitoring.



She had of course touched down on the vast cemetery that served as President Gorlax's lawn, to an audience. Four invisible hands grabbed her wrists and ankles. At once, she disappeared, and then reappeared over time. First her skeleton, then her circulatory system. Finally, her organs and musculature came back.



"You must be Janique," President Gorlax said.



"She's clean, boss."



"Can I have my skin back now? she asked.



"Right. Sorry."



Her skin reappeared, and the hands holding her released their grip.



"Vnew Vreal. I'd like to bite your dick off..."



President Gorlax smiled.



"A girl after my own heart. So to speak. That was quite an entrance."



"I've been working on my game."



"I hear you seek illegal weaponry."



"Illegal? By whom?"



"Proscribed. The weapons I have negate the concept. Hence illegal, in terms of war. For once they are employed...no more war. I assume you desire the death of millions? More?"



"No. Just this one guy."



"You've pursued normal means, of course."



"Worse. I've succeeded. He just keeps coming back."



"Humanoid?"



"Earthling."



"Psh."



He produced a small, ornate ray gun that appeared to be made out of brass and pewter from his overcoat pocket.



"Cancer gun."



"Really? Sickest. It's like a light sabre made out of evil. The safety's on."



"What do I owe you?"



"For this priceless weaponry, able to shape the fate of galaxies?"



"Yeah."



"I hear you're something of a film-maker."



"I've made a few."



"How would you like to have the 9D franchise on Gortician?"



Janique thought about it. "That's a lot of content."



"It is. But total artistic license. Think it over."



"I will."



Janique wanted to say something to the effect of "Why stop at 9D?" when she heard Prail remind her to dumb the tech down and sell it to them a little at a time.



"I'll need that back, of course. If I could just get a copy of your driver's license for the deposit."



"Deposit?"



President Gorlax smiled. "Just a formailty."



Janique didn't even know what she was wearing until she reached for the back pocket of her jeans and encountered a cape. She handed him a Texas driver's license.



"Hmm. Expired."



"Really?" she said.



"Afraid so."



She sighed and stamped her foot. "Be right back."



Janique managed to not shoot anyone until after she had her license in hand.



"Here," she said, handing it over.



"Nice picture. Have you considered my cable television offer?"



Instead of answering, Janique beamed the footage of the shoot-out at the DMV to him.



"Ah," he said. "More like that."



But she was just getting warmed up.



"Thanks, Gorlax," she said, using the forbidden informal, and then disappearing before he could react.



He liked her style.




###


Pex was feeling bold. He altered his vibration frequencies, walked up behind Prail at her terminal, and began a search. At the Cartesian center of the universe, he pasted his hack, elegantly swapping the coordinates for his own.



Now Pex didn't move, everything else did. The hardest part was convincing her computer to play along. His argument was that he wasn't really there, which stymied it to a large degree. The beauty of it was that she would never notice the difference. Unless he told her. Which he had. Before he did it.




###


Janique tracked Jason down and gave him a lengthy zap. To her dismay, the cancer gun did nothing. She returned it promptly.



"Oh, it takes thirty or forty years, if it works at all. A dreadful way to go, for some," President Gorlax said.



"I'll be in touch," she told him.




###


Pex had stored the lovers at year negative zero, which was conveniently off of most people's radar, and so was relatively safe. He found that they weren't too concerned with the where and when, as long as they were together.



One unforeseen problem was that Yeshua was a mess. He was so in love he couldn't think straight. Mary's love equaled his, and so they spent an inordinate amount of time staring into each other's eyes. It made them easy to handle, but often left Pex feeling alone in a room with three people in it.



He had no choice but to liven things up a bit.