Now Immersing in the Big God Network

Welcome to the blog for my science-fiction novel The Big God Network, with sample chapters.

Book description:

"J.C. McGowan's science-fiction debut blends the wry humor of Kurt Vonnegut with the cosmic scope of Carl Sagan and the edgy near-future scenarios of William Gibson. The novel explores the clash of culture and religion in cyberspace and post-America; the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and higher powers; and the socio-cultural impact of "virtual life" on our existence, as it takes us on an imaginative, breathless ride through Bali, Tokyo, California, and exotic virtual worlds that range from the fantasy realm of Nigh Errant to the erotic Yabyum Palace to the evangelical Church of the Good Citizen."

As the stars will have it,

J.C. McGowan

Excerpts from The Big God Network (best read sequentially):

ONE: The Channel

TWO: Halfway There

THREE: Indiscreet Geckoes and Naked French Girls

FOUR: Guttman's Antiques

FIVE: Monkey Forest Road

SIX: The Galactus Invitation

SEVEN: The Yabyum Palace

EIGHT: Daring Blend Super Cool

NINE: Pacifica Goodbyes

TEN: New America

TWENTY-THREE: Stars Fall From the Sky

TWENTY-SEVEN: Owinda's Way

THREE: Indiscreet Geckoes & Naked French Girls

Takeshi is on vacation in Bali, feeling restless, lonely and netsick. He has an insatiable urge to hop in a pod and immerse in virtual reality, preferably in the erotic Yabyum Palace. But there's also something odd happening on the Net that he needs to discuss with his colleagues Franz and Dolores...

In Ubud, the rain had stopped and the frogs were deafening. It sounded like there were hordes of them in the rice fields next to the hotel, bleating like amphibious goats. Takeshi could hear them with total clarity because he no longer had the white noise of his ceiling fan, power having been out all over town for the last two days, as the Jakarta energy scandal grew. The immobility of the fan liberated mosquitoes to roam at will in his room, and meant that he had no relief from the sticky, constant heat. Takeshi was staying in the Sri Bungalows because they held good memories from his first trip to Bali. But tonight he longed for his air conditioner back home in Tokyo.

He tossed and turned in sheets damp from his sweat. The night was conspiring to keep him awake. Geckoes, usually discreet, were ecko-ing to each other up on the roof. A mosquito whined in the air above him, then buzzed loudly as it passed next to his ear. Takeshi rolled out of bed, grabbed a flashlight and shone it on one of the bloodthirsty insects which had been dive bombing him. He rolled up his Herald Tribune and swatted the wall hard once, twice, three times. He missed his target, but managed to elicit maniacal laughter from the elderly English couple in the next room.

This was followed by the sounds of splashing outside, and giggling. The three French girls had returned to the pool, and once again they’d forgotten to bring their swimsuits.

Takeshi peeked through his window shutters and could just make out their sleek bodies, gleaming in the moonlight as they floated in a circle, facing each other. There were footsteps, then a knock on his door. He opened it and faced a beaming Lawrence, the English husband. He and his wife were in Ubud to purchase handicrafts for their gift shop in the Lake District.

“Takeshi, why don’t you try these?” He handed him two mosquito coils. “And come have a gin-and-tonic with us. We’re going to sit on the balcony and enjoy the stars.”

Why not? thought Takeshi. He had forgotten to recharge his batteries, so he couldn’t play chess with his nav. And the Net cafés on Monkey Forest Road never had backup generators, so there was no hope of getting on line that way. He needed to contact Franz and Dolores, but it could wait.

“Thanks, Lawrence.” He set the clay coils on the floor. Lawrence aimed his flashlight while Takeshi lit each one, aromatic smoke filling his nostrils. Then they stepped out on the balcony, where Lawrence’s wife Virginia was ensconced in a rattan chair, surrounded by more burning coils. Candles in bamboo holders illuminated a small table, equipped with several varieties of scotch, gin and vodka.

“You are well organized,” said Takeshi.

“The only decent pub in Ubud is a far trek at night,” said Lawrence. “It’s up on the Hill.”

He poured Takeshi a stiff G&T. “If you get bit again, at least the little buggers will be as drunk as you are.”

Takeshi took a big gulp. He opened his eyes to a sky flooded with stars. A low moon illuminated the rice fields on the other side of the hotel. Thunder sounded to the North, near holy Mt. Agung, the biggest volcano on the island. I remember this, thought Takeshi. No electricity, no artificial light. He hadn’t experienced anything like it in years.

Actually, he hadn’t experienced much of anything outside the Net for a long time. He allowed himself to gaze down at the pool, and Virginia noticed it. “You should go and join them.” She chuckled. “They don’t seem to have boyfriends.”

Takeshi laughed politely, but didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. He was too shy to do such a thing, awkward around women, and tormented by the memory of Mariko. He felt even lonelier when he saw the German couple on their balcony, on the other side of the pool. They were two judges from Potsdam, although they could have passed for graduate students. Candles also ringed their balcony, where they were sharing a bottle of wine. The woman waved and Takeshi waved back. He’d had lunch with them at Lotus Lane and enjoyed their company. Takeshi missed having what they had. It was hard enough existing in the outside world, and nearly impossible without the love of a good woman.

In Tokyo he lived an isolated existence, not leaving his apartment for weeks on end except to visit the vending machines or noodle shops at street level. He worked long hours on Transmigrations, adapting the show for Asian markets and researching cults. Franz was the host and co-researcher; his wife Dolores handled production and programming. At this point Takeshi’s friendship with them and their work together were what kept him going. Almost all his free time was spent on the Net. Takeshi had little contact with the human race outside, and liked it that way. But he was becoming afraid of people and awkward in the most mundane situations on the street. He was aware that his life had gotten out of hand.

He no longer even derived much pleasure from manga worlds, where you could immerse as your favorite character. He thought about discussing his growing isolation with Franz and Dolores, but didn’t want to burden them. Most of his Japanese friends existed only in email or as manifests, and he was reluctant to tell them about his problems. And he couldn’t confide in his family. They would tell him what they always did: give up that crazy show, become a regular salaryman, and find a nice Japanese girl to marry. He liked the latter idea, and wasn’t choosy about birth nations. But winning another woman’s heart seemed an impossibility. Not after Mariko. Takeshi sought therapy by retracing a trip of ten years ago, taken with college buddies after graduation. Bali had liberated him and made him feel alive then, and he hoped it could bring him back to life now.

The power returned in Ubud. The stars grew dim and the frog chorus diminished to a murmur. The French girls squealed and splashed in the water. Takeshi took another look at the pool, and saw their faces giggling above the surface. He felt a surge of desire. It might be a good time to immerse and visit the Yabyum Palace. After all, he’d been in Bali for forty-eight hours and hadn’t gone online once. He hadn’t abstained that long since the age of three. And he did need to contact Franz and Dolores. Strange things had been happening on the Net, possibly of interest to them.

First, though, he wanted to indulge himself. The French girls were fixed in his mind. Lusty and netsick he was. He felt an irresistible pull, a restlessness that wouldn’t quit. Worse than a junkie.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
The Big God Network (at Amazon.com)
The Big God Network (at Amazon U.K.)
The Big God Network (at Amazon Canada)

TWENTY-SEVEN: Owinda’s Way

With Franz on the run in New America, Dolores has driven to Goleta to seek moral support from her friend and mentor Owinda, the high priestess of a chain of Wiccan covens that stretch from Venice Beach in Pacifica to Salt Spring Island in Canada.

“The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” Owinda smiled in that way she had, like the sly sneer Elvis had been famous for. She closed the book, took a long puff on a thick Cuban cigar, and blew a smoke ring towards a cluster of tiger lilies in a vase.

“It’s beautiful,” said Dolores. “Chief Seattle?” They were inside Owinda’s house.

“Yes, and there’s another part of his speech that I love very much.” Owinda scrunched up her wrinkled face and closed her crystal-blue eyes. “Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.”

She opened her eyes, and stared sadly at Dolores.

“You read that last part from memory,” sighed Dolores. “How do you do it? I can’t even remember my shopping list.”

Owinda stared at her without blinking for a long while, then said, “It is nothing. An art that is nearly gone now, anyway. The machines remember for us, think for us, act for us, live for us. Civilization is no longer carried in the mind, generation to generation. Now it exists only in data bases and legal systems and bank records, and humans themselves have nothing to carry forth to posterity. They go through the motions, mechanically, like zombies, without life or wisdom. There aren’t many real homo sapiens left on earth. I am one of the last.” She took another long puff on the cigar.

“It’s a big world out there,” said Dolores. “What about those who live in the upper Amazon or the Outback?”

“My dear, there are vestiges,” said Owinda. “Yet villages in the remotest stretches of rain forest have embraced Christianity and capitalism. Their shamans have died and they’ve forgotten the old ways. They wear soccer shorts and follow the World Cup and get drunk and have their teeth fixed and get hooked on video games. They trade in old diseases for new diseases, and lose their souls in the process.

“Most of what used to be the tribal world, which was the last living world as far as I’m concerned, has been deforested, denuded, canned, packaged, eroded, overpopulated, turned into chemical dumps, or culturally polluted by Western ways. There’s not much left. A few pockets of real civilization scattered here and there, including the last remnants of indigenous peoples -- and there certainly aren’t many of them left.”

She sighed again, and looked much older than the sixty years that Dolores guessed was her age. “This is unfortunate for your future.” She hugged Dolores. “You know I consider you my daughter. And I think of that husband of yours as my child, despite his barbaric gender.”

“We know, Owinda,” smiled Dolores, kissing her on the cheek.

“Well, you two are as close as I’ll ever get, all things being what they are.” She smiled. “If I had been able to stay married, and if I could stand men, then you would be the children I’d have wanted. But the straight life wasn’t in my nature, thank the Goddess.”

She walked over to a mahogany table and pulled open one of the drawers. She took out a candle, set it in a silver holder and lit it. “This is beeswax, which is sacred to the goddess. Bee societies are strict matriarchies after all.”

“Heaven help the drones,” said Dolores.

“Males have their uses,” said Owinda, passing her hand above the flame, seemingly transfixed by it. “You know, I am staying on our lovely blue planet as long as there is air and water and fire and stone. I love the here and now. No transcendence of birth and death as sought by Hindus and Buddhists. That after all would be a rejection of women’s power and of the cycle of life itself. Of the Goddess, in other words. No, give me my earthly existence.”

Dolores wondered what Owinda was leading up to. She and Franz had known Owinda since graduate school, when she was a visiting professor at Duke, teaching a graduate-level course in Matriarchal Cosmogonies. It was before she founded her network of goddess covens on the West Coast. In her lectures, she blamed men for every conceivable crime against humanity. They were even responsible for women’s transgressions, including those of female leaders who of course had been the victims of the patriarchy and brainwashed into acting like men. Only men were inherently violent, greedy and antisocial. It was in their chromosomes.

Owinda put Franz on the gender-defensive. He argued with her for hours during their first meeting in her office, though he agreed with many of her points. She interrupted him frequently by getting up to put on her owl headdress, wave a broom, and chant witchy spells. He worried he was getting hexed. But when he asked her what she had been saying, she smiled and translated her Celtic (her preferred ritual language). They were prayers to the Goddess for his health and for good communication. “Just because you’ve got a penis and excessive testosterone doesn’t mean you can’t learn to control your evil, selfish nature and become a responsible servant of womankind,” she had said, in her peculiar way that meant she liked someone.

Franz and Dolores appreciated her sly humor and unusual perspective. The three of them became close friends, with common interests in comparative religion, ethnobotany, and all-night poker games. Once Dolores married Franz, Owinda told her, “He’s a good consort. But control him, don’t let him control you. If you’re one of those women that has to have a male, then remember that the man-goat serves the priestess. Do keep that in mind.” Dolores had laughed, but she didn’t need Owinda’s assistance in getting her way with Franz.

“Dolores, please, sit,” said Owinda. She had changed into a royal blue sari, with a hemp-fiber necklace of shells.

She motioned for Dolores to take a seat in an antique oak chair and offered her tea from a silver tray.

“I don’t know what Offworld’s story is,” said Owinda. “But your troubles couldn’t come at an odder time. I sense connection here.” She flicked away bad energy from her fingertips, like she was getting rid of cobwebs.

“With what?” asked Dolores.

“The coven sisters are describing odd occurrences in the Net when they manifest. Not the usual peepers, but inexplicable distortions, strange emotions, feelings of an invisible presence.”

“It is immersion, Owinda,” said Dolores. “A powerful illusion.”

“This is something else.”

“What do the E-Police say?”

“That it’s power surges. But it’s not.”

“How do you know?”

Owinda faced the far wall of the living room. A hand-woven tapestry of a moon, a star, and an ibis hung there, above a pine table full of tribal medicine bundles and figurines of female deities from different cultures.

“Dolores.” Owinda spoke while facing the wall, “It is my profession, my life, to know these things.”

She turned around. “You and Franz were on this path once, too, but you turned away from it. You no longer believe in anything.”

“I believe in love.”

“That is nothing!” She relit her cigar and savored its taste for a moment, then filled the immediate area with pungent smoke. “Well, I mean to say that love is everything, of course, on one level, a singularity where physical and mental laws can break down. I know this well.”

She chuckled and took another puff. “For example, there was my husband Dark Hawk, an Oglala shaman. What power he had. A shame it couldn’t last.”

“A fascinating man,” said Dolores. “I remember your stories.”

“Our love eventually faded away, maybe because I was developing my own powers and that unsettled him. Then I became infatuated with a cowgirl from Wyoming and that was the last I had to do with men.” Owinda paused. “As consorts, that is. Anyway, I digress. I am speaking of something deeper, something which encompasses love and gives birth to it, a vastness that we can not explain. And that is exactly what you and Franz must rediscover. There is much on earth that we have not dreamt of and can scarcely imagine.”

“That’s Shakespeare, more or less.”

“One of the dead Euro-penis people, as we used to say back in the day,” she cackled. “He was a genius. And aware that forces are at play that defy comprehension.”

“I agree with that,” said Dolores.

“But you have turned away from that which attracted you in the first place to the noumenon, as Kant would put it. You have forgotten why you were studying what you were studying. You found the paths, and the paths drew you in. The invisible connections between things. Uncanny coincidences, apparent telepathy, a sense of awe and wonder. You used to be curious about what they might ultimately portend, about what you couldn’t see, about what might be out there.”

She waved delicately in the air with two fingers of her right hand. “What happened to the glimmer fields?”

“How do you remember that?” Dolores smiled. The glimmer fields was a phrase she and Franz had come up with. She thought back to when they’d gone for a walk in the Duke Forest after midnight and lain down on a plank bridge over a rushing stream. Lying on their backs, studying the stars and listening to the sounds in the water, they had used the expression as they imagined unified fields of consciousness in the universe. A fabric of life energy. Gaia and something greater. Such a radiant web seemed almost palpable on such nights.

“Yes, what happened, indeed,” sighed Dolores.

“You were both cosmosapient, but somewhere along the way you lost your spirit.” Owinda waved her bejeweled fingers. “You both seem to be in it only for the Euros or the Woz now. You are wasting your considerable energies. Your axé and that of the Goddess.”

“We have an interesting show. People like it,” said Dolores.

“You do good work. But you’re off the path.” Owinda threw up her hands, closed her eyes, and intoned, “We are part of the Goddess, and to her we nightly return.” She ran her fingers over her necklace of shells. “I’ve watched you both embark on this career with Takeshi, and now it’s time for you to go back, retrace your steps, think about why you are where you are today.”

“We know what we’re doing. We chose it.”

“I wonder.” Owinda frowned. “Somehow, this is a touchy subject,” she added, her accent growing curiously thick. “We’ve never gotten to the bottom of this.”

“There’s no bottom to get to,” insisted Dolores.

“Maybe not. But you have to change, regardless.” Owinda lifted her arms, and her head twitched. “I am saying that you two had better get with it, and soon. Because you’re in over your heads. I can feel it. And if you’d been in harmony none of this would have happened.”

“None of what would have happened?”

“I feel that major forces are in play.”

“Now you’ve got me worried,” said Dolores. “Why do you say that?”

“It doesn’t take any of my usual powers to inform you of that. Merely an accumulation of facts, which is nothing.” Owinda laughed and stubbed out her cigar. “You told me in the garden you had a strange encounter in the Church of the Good Citizen. Franz gets an unexpected invitation to Galactus. Then people are shooting at each other and he has to go incommunicado. It’s not business as usual, is it?”

^ ^ ^ ^

The Big God Network (at Amazon.com)
The Big God Network (at Amazon U.K.)
The Big God Network (at Amazon Canada)

TWENTY-THREE: Stars Fall From The Sky

Meanwhile, in Colorado Springs, the capital of New America...

“I’ve told this to few people, Babs, but I have had visions of a coming conflagration involving Pacifica.” President Billy Bob Shepard stood in the ready room of the Colorado Springs White House, hands clasped behind his back. He gazed out the window at the wide lawn that led to lofty spruce and fir trees inside the perimeter wall of granite hewn from the Sangre De Cristo range.

His press secretary was furiously typing on her laptop. Babs Holstein looked up and smiled. “I’d like to hear it, sir.”

“A voice spoke to me saying, ‘As the nation was torn asunder, so shall you restore its unity.’ ” Shepard turned to face Holstein. “I believe that time has come, Babs.”

“We are united behind you, sir.”

“I know I can always count on you, on my cabinet and, of course, on our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Him above all.”

“I believe the voice that spoke to me was His voice,” said Billy Bob. “Or at least one of His public-relations people.” Babs smiled.

He put his arms behind his back and pondered the events that had brought them to this point. The holiness of the New Crusades and the abomination of the Great Split. The United States was the most glorious nation in the history of humankind, a God-fearing cradle of freedom and a citadel of divine prosperity. Then dark forces sought to poison the well, to undo the goodness. Secular influence twisted minds and destroyed values, and traitors spread propaganda and undermined the mission. There was a clear choice early in the century: fragment into chaos or become a holy Christian empire. Unfortunately, the former prevailed, resulting in civil war. Casualties were relatively low, yet the result catastrophic.

“Such a tragedy,” he muttered.

As usual, Babs picked up his train of thought. “Mr. President, perhaps it was an essential purification, one that will bring us closer to the Rapture.”

“We can only pray it is so,” said Billy Bob.

“I weep,” Babs was holding back tears, “for those believers who found themselves behind enemy lines after the Great Split, sir.”

“Abandoned!” roared Billy Bob. “My predecessors cut and run, and left a lot of good folk in the new territories.”

“It’s awful.” Babs dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief. “They were caught between a rock and a hard place. They could move to New America and leave their former lives behind. Or stay in Pacifica or New England and endure liberal tyranny.”

“Or learn Navajo and move to Dinee,” said Billy Bob. “It was a tough choice they shouldn’t have had to make. Old America should not have been broken apart. That was not our destiny.”

“I would think not, sir.”

“Yet, for better and worse, the new nations are still connected. Now it is by the Net, the ceaseless ebb and flow of information, of endless bits and bytes. Apart and together. We are free of their wicked ways yet must suffer their voices.”

“That is the modern world, sir.”

“There is truth on the Net, Babs. And lies. And much sickness.” His upper lip quivered.

“An epidemic, sir.”

“The liberals and their fellow travelers overseas will stop at nothing to subvert New America, the new holy land. We can not let that happen.”

“Amen, sir.”

“Pacifica seeks to corrupt youth with their transgressive culture.”

“Sweet, innocent minds, sir.”

“They send viruses and worms to infiltrate our systems.”

“Diabolical, sir.”

“They pass on encryption codes to empower criminals within our very borders.”

“An outrage, sir.”

“Yet a new technology exists that could prevent them from doing that, and help us to win the information war, the battle for hearts and minds.”

“Impressive, Mr. President.”

“With it we can control communications from Pacifica and other rogue nations.”

“Most helpful, sir.”

“There are endless applications.” Billy Bob took a seat at his desk. “How strange that this possibly divine gift should come to us through a band of oddballs out in the desert.”

“We should not look a gift horse in the mouth, sir, as the saying goes. Think of the foreign scientists who helped Old America develop the A-bomb first.”

“Right you are, Babs. Many communists and atheists and Hebrews among them who contributed to our victory in World War Two.”

“God works in mysterious ways sir.”

“On occasion,” smiled Billy Bob. “These days His will is clear. We have a covenant to keep.”

“So you do, sir.”

“Babs, it is important to keep this hush-hush, as usual, but we are teamed with our number-one corporate ally on this one.”

“Yes, sir. The Bank,” replied Holstein. “Secretary Goodrich informed me.”

“Naturally, it’s not going to be part of the speech you are finishing for me tonight.”

“Heavens no, sir.”

“They are feeding us additional intelligence. I’ve promised them first dibs on any commercial applications.” He grinned widely.

“Sir, the cabinet is in the Dobson Room, waiting for you to lead the prayer session, and you have the Secretary of Defense on line three.”

“I’ll take it here, Babs.” Billy Bob looked down at his speaker phone. “And do you have my Armageddon speech ready?”

“Just about. We have eight hours before you deliver it, I believe.”

“You’ll get your editing time.” He winked at her and punched in line three for Secretary Goodrich.

“Hey Luke, do you have a plan for dealing with the guru’s birds?” They had already discussed Offworld’s satellites, which would have to be commandeered at some point.

“Yes sir, Mr. President,” came Goodrich’s voice through the speaker phone.

“When the time is right, I want to see those stars fall from the sky.”

He hung up the phone.

Billy Bob felt sure that God’s hand was guiding him. He sensed the power. The glory. And the certainty.

^ ^ ^ ^

The Big God Network (at Amazon.com)
The Big God Network (at Amazon U.K.)
The Big God Network (at Amazon Canada)

TEN: New America

The division between Pacifica and New America lay north of the San Gabriel Mountains, green after heavy spring rains. Franz’s Intoda Quark descended the Alan Kay Highway, moving from the oaks and pinyon pines of the foothills into the scrub of the high desert. It was hot outside, Mojave hot. Ahead lay the border and an immigration-control checkpoint in the shadow of two gigantic praying hands. They were a hundred feet high, made of steel-reinforced concrete said to be capable of withstanding anything from an 8.5 earthquake to a caravan of truck bombs. It was hard to see much beyond the hands, because of low-level haze generated by off-road enthusiasts and industrial pollution. The horizon was seldom visible in the high desert anymore, not after the Accommodation.

It was time to talk to his nav. Around his neck, Franz wore a necklace with a tiny amethyst Ganesha that was her off-line housing. He opened the Ganesha, removed Betty’s chip, and inserted it into the dashboard. Like most of her kind, her memory was stored redundantly in off-site servers, accessed as soon as she came online. Betty’s personality was not complete with chip alone. “I just don’t feel myself,” she would say, before she was plugged into the Net.

Betty manifested in the lower right hand corner of the windshield, resembling a white-haired librarian in a purple shawl.

“Morning Betty.”

“Morning, Franz. I’m seeing that we took a roundabout journey down PCH and up Topanga, before catching the Ted Nelson and the Alan Kay.”

“I can’t talk when I’m waking up. You know that, Betty.”

She ignored him. “Tell me this, Franz. Any sightings in Topanga? Bikers on Harleys? Nudists? Artists? Actors? Hippies?”

“Saw a coyote.” Franz thought about how Topanga Canyon had been one of the areas targeted for “holy purification” by the ACC when the New Crusades had broken out.

Franz drove on, and they played Global Spiritual Geography for a while.

“Howling storm gods, twin gods of dawn, and gods of wind, Arjuna, wondrous forms not seen before.”

Franz pondered the phrase, then replied, “Lord Krishna speaking in the Bhagavad-Gita.”

“Correct,” she replied. “How about this: so mote it be.”

“Too easy.” Betty was throwing him early-morning softballs. It was a favorite phrase of Owinda, their Wiccan friend.

“I’ll up the level,” said Betty. “But you have incoming. It’s Zon-5.”

“Take a message.” Franz shuddered. The popular AI teleguru was renowned for having cybersex with thousands of his followers in cyberspace, both men and women. He’d been the cause of breakups, not to mention lost work hours, sex addiction and runaway user debt. He proclaimed that he wanted to spread “body enlightenment” around the world, and eagerly sought coverage by shows like Transmigrations. Zon-5 also claimed to be a free agent, independent of a keeper, the person who managed a sentient bot in the Net or outside in holographic form.

“He wants to be a RoboOsho,” said Franz. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho, was a 20th century cult leader who had mixed Eastern religions, humanistic psychology and free love. The “sex guru” had made tons of money, deflowered innumerable devotees and owned several dozen Rolls Royces. Franz wondered if Zon-5 hoped to use his wealth to exist outside; it was rumored he was investing in robotics firms and wanted to upload into physical form.

“Do you want to interview him?”

“So he can increase his virtual harem?”

“The sex couldn’t be safer.”

“He is a sexually transmitted disease, of the neural variety,” laughed Franz. Billy Bob Shepard banned human-bot sex in N’Am, he thought. Was he right?

He let Betty pilot the Quark while he scanned the nets. They were abuzz about Baba Ed’s secret project, and he asked his nav to place part of her attention there.

“Messages from both progressive and sinister forces have been intercepted,” she commented.

“How do you define progressive?” asked Franz.

“Those who care,” smiled Betty. “Those who haven’t lost their way, like someone we know. But who am I to say? I’m just a bundle of nagging algorithms who likes to think she possesses feminine intuition.”

“Your intuition, if we can call it that, has gotten me out of a lot of hot water, Betty.”

“Speaking of which, is this wise to be visiting White Mountain?”

“Foolish. With benefits. After Galactus, we can come straight back and drive all night through the desert.”

“I know how you enjoy that,” said Betty. “You can sleep and let me drive. Or I can keep you awake with appropriate sub-sonic simulations, wind chill, and aggravating talk radio. We can listen to the Howling Patriot.”

“Is that sarcasm coming from your core self or from what you’ve absorbed from me?”

“Both, of course. Navs reflect their masters. Except those whose egos go supernova.”

“Don’t call me your master, Betty.”

“Liberal guilt? Better get rid of it. We are entering the promised land.”

“Yes, here comes the rapture.”

From the dust emerged the great white hands, pressed together and beseeching the skies above. They rose out of an immaculately mown grass strip, the only spot of green for miles. At night, an array of searchlights turned the reverent hands into the brightest sight this side of Las Vegas. A guard in an immigration control booth, who had processed the Quark’s signature signal, took a look at Franz and then waved him through.

“God bless, brother,” said the guard.

“God help us,” replied Franz, stepping on the accelerator.

He passed barren hills with mesquite bushes and Joshua trees. Then a large billboard of a pale, blue-eyed Jesus with his hand resting on the shoulder of a stocky, serious hunter with camouflage apparel and a shotgun. Large letters read “The NRA Welcomes You To N’Am.”

Franz hadn’t scanned as a known terrorist, socialist, tree-hugger, value-deviant or other type of criminal. Yet he knew it was only a matter of time before he registered in the system as a subversive. Transmigrations had done too many segments on evangelicals to remain off N’Am’s radar. Perhaps he was already under surveillance.

The Quark entered a nation with no separation of church and state, business and science. All was one and marched to the same drummer. Religious schools dominated the educational system through high school and they taught Bible studies and creationism, but not evolution or cosmology. Environmental studies were not in the curriculum, nor was sex education. Controversial books were banned. It was a strange place, both selectively Puritanical and utterly unethical. Corruption was at the highest level in the developed world, and deregulation had erased remaining distinctions between politics and special interests. Pornography, abortion, drugs, and homosexual sex were illegal, although the rich and powerful indulged at will in vices provided by a flourishing mafia.

Yet few voices assailed the hypocrisy. The Department of Homeland Safety’s spying complex in Colorado Springs kept close watch over serious dissent. It was considered information terrorism.

Franz did not like it here.

^ ^ ^ ^

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NINE: Pacifica Goodbyes

Franz had set his alarm for 5:30 am the day he was to leave for White Mountain. His sleep had been fitful. He woke in a sweat and exhaled sharply. Dawn was breaking over the mountains above town and pink light colored the tree branches outside. Dolores was awake, propped up on an elbow, watching him. She slid close, the silk of her nightgown and warmth of her skin reassuring as always. He thought about having her throw an I-Ching for him, or consult the orixás, to give him a clue about his uneasy journey, then remembered he didn’t believe in either of those any more.

“Sleep more, Lo,” he kissed her.

She smiled and closed her eyes. He got up and tiger-striped Elmer jumped on the bed and took his place, curling up next to Dolores.

“Usurper,” grinned Franz.

He glanced around the bedroom. All was as it should be. He was home in the Santa Barbara bungalow he shared with Dolores. He looked at their Navajo rugs, the Dogon carvings from Mali, and the Stickley oak desk they had purchased at an antique store in West L.A. He was missing the tranquility he usually felt here.

Franz had decided to drive to Andromeda Station, and had declined the private jet offered by Dr. Guttman. Dolores didn’t like it, considering the recent tension between Pacifica and New America, but Franz had wanted to see the desert and the Sierra Nevada. Now he was regretting it. What the hell am I doing?

You’re earning money, he reminded himself. Transmigrations doesn’t have any. He decided he’d talk about the bottom line with Dolores and Takeshi when he got back from White Mountain. Their credit was tapped out, and they’d have to return hat-in-hand to their start-up investors. Again. He didn’t know if it would work this time.

Lights came on automatically as he entered the office, and his wall LCD lit up with an ultra-def panorama of a grove of giant sequoia trees, into which the screen slowly crept forward, following a trail into the forest. At the bottom was a box with two messages.

“Takeshi,” said Franz.

Text mail appeared, unusual for their friend, and Takeshi’s message mentioned that “things have been peculiar in the Net.”

“Aren’t they always?” Franz spoke to the screen. “I’ll keep an eye out, thanks Tak. Could be any number of pissed-off sects and cults. Enjoy Bali. Send.”

The letters CUNAC remained in the message box.

“Open,” said Franz. An inset displayed a droopy-eyed, grey-haired man in a silver tunic. He stood beside a table covered with green velvet, upon which rested a crystal pyramid. “Hello, Mr. Sampaio,” he said. “I’m John of the Carmel Unified New Astral Church. We were wondering if Transmigrations would like to do a show on us. We are the fastest growing church in Monterey County,” he smiled hopefully.

“Delete,” said Franz. The inset vanished into the sequoia foliage. It had to be the tenth message he’d received from them in the last week. Franz had no interest in their church. He was tired of mercenary New Era mish-mashes, in which a charismatic leader threw together a bit of this and a bit of that, and left out the sincerity. It might be shamanism, channeling, Spiritism, or aura readings. Shake and stir, add a teaspoon of Zen or Native American wisdom, and create a tax-free business.

He felt smooth arms embrace him from behind and lips on his neck. “Did Tak meet a girl?”

“Didn’t mention it.”

“I worry about him.” Dolores swooned with dramatic flair into his arms and gazed up at him.

“We need to take him to Paris or Rio or somewhere it’s easy to meet people. Outside.”

“He interacts online with people all over the world every day, my luscious Luddite.”

“Yes, and where does that lead?”

“Usually nowhere, like today.”

“Why go then? Stay here. Come back to bed.”

“Just for one minute.” The screen went black as he followed her out of the room. They flopped onto the bed together on the half not taken up by their cat.

“I was hijacked out of my favorite bar by Dr. Guttman.”

“An aggressive move on his part,” Dolores said. “Do you trust him?”

Franz thought about it. “Yes. But he wouldn’t tell me exactly what he needs from me. Only that I must come to Andromeda Station.”

“Maybe he wants you to take Offworld seriously. They’ve gotten a lot of unwarranted bad publicity.”

“I would say it’s warranted.”

“Put your diplomat’s hat on, Franz Sampaio.”

“I’ll behave. Unless Baba Ed wants me to interview him.”

“Be careful. Call me on the road. I’ll be in the Church of the Good Citizen later today. You can say hello while I’m immersed.”

“I’m impressed. I thought we were going to have to hack our way in.”

“They finally approved a limited visit.”

“It only took us a year to get an invitation. Of course, I wouldn’t invite us either.”

“Owinda senses energies coming together.”

“Whatever that means. I don’t always agree with her Wiccan interpretations.”

“It means she and I are both worried about you.”

“Everyone’s worried about me! What about you, Elmer?” The cat was rubbing against his hand and purring. “No worries, eh?”

“You’ve been different lately.”

“Bad memories of the Crusades, maybe.”

“Yes, there is that.” She gently ran her fingers over his chest. “But something else is weighing on you. I’d like to do the shells for you when you return. Find out what is oppressing you.”

He had felt adrift lately. But now was not the time to talk about it. First he needed to get the business back on track. Somehow.

"I feel like a condemned man,” Franz said. “And these are my last hours with my true love.” He reached for Dolores, but she smiled and slipped out of his grasp. Elmer meowed and jumped off the bed. “My last few minutes with my soul mate in all space-time iterations.” 

Dolores stood on the hardwood floor, watching Franz, and let her nightgown slip to the floor. She allowed him a moment’s contemplation of her body, then turned and walked nude to the bathroom.

“You cruel tease,” moaned Franz.

“I want you worked up when you get back,” came the voice from the bath. Water was running.

“Nasty wench.”
“You wish.”

How strongly he was attracted to her, even after ten years of marriage. Her lilting voice and bright hazel eyes held him in her thrall. Her long wavy hair and the gentle bounce in her walk aroused him. And her passionately intelligent mind kept him addicted. He thought of joining her in the tiled bath, surrounded by ferns and orchids, then remembered he had to hit the road soon in order to make the Galactus ceremonies.

He decided to drive fast.

^ ^ ^ ^

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EIGHT: Daring Blend Super Cool

On the other side of the window, the cup of steaming coffee shimmered in the night air at eye level above the sidewalk. Yuji texture-mapped a black-and-white checkered pattern on the cup, and inserted a bobbing yellow happy face with beret above it. The face winked and chirped “Super cool” and “Daring Kenya-Sumatra blend.” Yuji adjusted the specs on his laptop inside the café, and put on his NokOak gogs to observe his handiwork outside. The information went out on the wifi. He noticed with satisfaction that a young man wearing gogs seemed to have noticed the holo. Nearly everyone under thirty in Tokyo wandered through an enhanced urban reality these days, while older folks tended to prefer buildings and streets without virtual adornments.

Yuji Sasahara turned towards his waitress Aiko, who was standing idly by the cash register, admiring her nails. Her holo-hair was shifting from a blue afro to a rainbow mohawk to spiraling fireworks. If you happened to be staring at her while wearing gogs, that is. Yuji didn’t allow her to use the café wifi for her fashion statements, but it was fine by him whatever she transmitted out of her cell. The young man had certainly noticed her, and was having a hard time directing his attention to the coffee menu on the wall.

Yuji closed his laptop. It was time to go to his church, where he ministered to down-and-out denizens of the Tokyo underworld, many of whom he’d come across in his former occupation. He was about to get up when he noticed the middle-aged man standing in the doorway. He had a tight perm and wore Ray-Bans and a blazer. He was lazily chewing on a toothpick. Yakuza, thought Yuji immediately. But I don’t know this one.

The man held his position in the doorway for a moment, looking everywhere but at Yuji, then strode directly over to the table.

“Sasahara-san,” said the man, bowing. “May I sit with you?”

“Please.” Yuji nodded. He knew that under the man’s long-sleeved shirt was a body covered by florid tattoos, as his was. The man was missing the tip of each little finger.

“Who sent you?”

“Tanaka-san,” said the man. “He needs a favor.”

Yuji glanced over to the counter, where the young man was chatting with Aiko, while casually looking over in their direction.

“Tanaka-san knows I am retired. I left the family and work for God now.”

“Your church is the New Life Assembly of Heavenly Father. We know about this new life of yours. Every aspect of it.”

Yuji sized up the man before him, and the younger one chatting with Aiko. He was rusty, but he had no doubt that if he got to a standing position he could take them both out before they could access their knives or guns.

“Relationships are everything, are they not, Sasahara-san?”

“I’m with God’s family now.”

“I know you are afraid of nothing, Sasahara-san.” The man stared at him. “And that you are a man of honor.”

Yuji held his gaze, and showed no expression.

“Tanaka-san needs your help.”

And Yuji knew he would give it. It wasn’t because of his prodigious gambling losses that Tanaka-san had paid off. Yuji had repaid that generosity by carrying out dangerous missions needed by his boss. It was because Tanaka-san had given his blessing to Junko leaving her job as a bar hostess to marry Yuji, and to Yuji leaving the family. Those were two large debts that he’d long known he would have to repay one day. He knew what would be required of him. He just didn’t know how to square it with the Lord. He would pray that he would be serving the church with his actions.

“I will wait for his call.”

The man stood and bowed. “It was an honor to meet you, Sasahara-san.” He turned and, with the younger man in tow, exited the café.

Yuji put his gogs back on and stared at the cup of coffee hovering outside the window. He tapped the gog frames to tweak the volume. It might be the last time he heard a happy face chirping about the super blend.

The sound was distorting in his left ear. He tugged and it came off with a soft click. There was a small stainless-steel plate on the side of his head where the ear had been. He took a reading off his gogs, activated an option to re-synch them with his ear piece, and clicked the ear back in place.

Next he pulled up his pants leg and examined his SandiaChelyabinsk electronic right knee, with its titanium housing. He was getting a phantom-limb feeling there again. He felt his thigh with the artificial fast-twitch muscles, then checked his bionic lower leg. That Chinese Triad gang in Kobe had shot it to shit years ago. He couldn’t control the ghostly ache, although he had largely mastered pain in the rest of his body. Perhaps it was a message from the Lord about humility, or about the eternal soul. He wasn’t sure.

He asked Aiko to pour him a cup of coffee.

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