‘For Christ’s sake?’ Rex pondered upon that one. It seemed extremely probable.
‘No buddy. This Wormwood he just sprung up today. Out of the woodwork I guess. Ha ha. Everyone’s moving mouth about him but no-one knows a goddamn thing.’
‘You mean no-one ever heard of him before today?’
‘Did you? He made some speech or something yesterday. Now the media can’t get enough of him. Prime time they’re giving him. He’d sure better have something to say. Hey buddy, where’re you going?’ But buddy had went.
And Jack had done with his tale. His version of events differed substantially from those formally chronicled here. His was filled with deeds of extreme heroism and great self-sacrifice. He told it with such conviction that he had his listeners utterly convinced. It was profoundly to be hoped that during the course of events yet to occur, Jack would redeem himself and ultimately make good. However, on his showing thus far, this seems unlikely.
‘And then I came here,’ Jack concluded.
‘Some day you’ve had,’ Spike whistled. ‘And this Rex who you busted out of jail. They shot him dead?’
‘Two of them were holding me down. I couldn’t do a thing.’
John raised his hand. ‘And that’s when you used the…’
‘Dimac,’ said Jack. ‘It’s a martial arts technique. I was taught it by Count Dante himself. The deadliest man alive.’
Spike did further whistlings. ‘Some hero. Didn’t know you had it in you, boss.’
‘When the chips are down, a man’s gotta do, and all that.’
‘And so you want us to run your library program here and cut the cutter?’
Jack nodded.
Ella Guru said, ‘It can’t be done. Too dangerous. That seeker is sitting in the matrix just waiting. We don’t have enough power to zero it. That thing is Bio-tech.’
‘Try this on,’ said Spike. ‘What if it wasn’t only us? What if every Zen up and down the country hooked in at the same time? We could catch that seeker right in the middle. Home right in.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jack. ‘What do you mean?’
Mad John clapped his hands together. ‘Spike means we feed your program to a million Zen pirates simultaneously. The seeker can’t go everywhere at once. It would freeze. Too much input. Using the land lines we could get a triangulation on its control. Take some time to set up, though.’
‘How much time?’ The hero shifted uneasily in his chair.
‘Depends how many Zens are on-line now. I’ll put out an invitation to the party through the video-games network. See what we get. But I reckon we could easy set it up by tonight. Say, eight o’clock.’
‘Some big number, eh boss?’ Spike punched Jack playfully on the shoulder.
‘Ouch,’ said Jack.
Mad John set in for a busy afternoon.
Elvis Presley had had a busy afternoon. As a shareholder in MTWTV he had little difficulty in acquiring the necessary entry codes to gain access to the company computer. Calling up the employee records and staff rosters, he installed a Mr Thomas Henry Edward King as temporary head of security. Gave him the finest references and put him on immediate active service.
Elvis then donned ‘Mr King’s’ smart new uniform and over this a crisp white coverall with the words SERVICE ENGINEER emblazoned across the back. He humped several cases of serious-looking hardware into the rear of an unmarked van and set off from the underground car park. Elvis cranked up the quadrophonic and accompanied Barry in a rousing three-part rendition of ‘Jailhouse Rock’.
Carrying a case of equipment and sporting the ever-present mirror shades, Elvis the engineer checked in at the reception of Passing Cloud Productions, a multi-national film corporation directly across the street from MTWTV. ‘Come to check the dish, ma’am.’
The receptionist gazed up at him. She was sleek, chic and sensual. Killer sideburns, she thought, and what exclusive shades. ‘What dish?’ said she.
‘One on the roof ma’am. Man says you got interference. Probably birds is all. Best I go take a look.’
‘You got a pass?’
‘No honey, I ain’t. But if you wanna call up security it’s OK by me.’ The receptionist turned away to make the call. Elvis plucked a small contrivance from his pocket, primed it and clipped it beneath the reception desk.
‘Oooh!’ The receptionist let out a yell as her telephone suddenly fed back into her ear.
‘Reckon I’d best go up and fix it,’ said Elvis. ‘I’d pull the plug for now,’
The receptionist rubbed her ear. ‘OK, but make it quick.’
‘No sweat, ma’am.’ Elvis took the lift. Then the small runged ladder to the roof hatch. Once through this he set up a fearsome-looking rifle on a recoil-sprung tripod. Clamped and adjusted a laser night-sight with inbuilt video broadcaster. Linked up various other hi-tech bits and bobs. Peered along the sight toward the main doors of MTWTV. Patted the piece and said, ‘Uh-hu.’
Then he left the roof. Having closed the hatch, he welded the lock, just to be on the safe side. He was leaving nothing to chance. And he was doing very well so far.
The receptionist watched him as he swaggered from the lift. He winked invisibly and approached her. ‘Try it now honey.’ As she turned away once more, Elvis removed the contrivance from beneath her desk, switched it off and dropped it into his pocket. ‘All AOK now?’
‘Fine.’ The sleek young woman offered Elvis one of those smiles which say ‘wouldn’t you just like to, well perhaps you just might’.
‘What time do you get off work?’ Elvis asked.
‘Not until about eight thirty. I’m on late tonight.’
‘What say I pick you up around then? Do you like macrobiotic food?’
‘Just love it.’
‘Come on chief,’ whispered the sprout.
‘Eight thirty,’ said Elvis.
‘Eight thirty it is.’
Elvis slipped into his van and removed the coverall. He placed a cap upon his head. Adjusted it, just so. Straightened out any creases in his uniform and grinned into the rear-view mirror. ‘Gotta look the part,’ he told the agitated sprout. Then he took off for the car park of MTWTV.
Here he encountered no opposition whatever. ‘You want I should call up security and have them show you around?’ Elvis ogled the young woman who was turning his fake ID back and forward in her hand. Another beauty, but he had a full evening.
‘No ma’am. I’ll just check the place over myself. Don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. Just tell them to carry on as normal. Which studio will Mr Wormwood be broadcasting from?’
‘Studio One. End of the hall.’
Thanks ma’am.’ And that was mostly that. Elvis entered Studio One, concealed certain devices in certain places and left without anyone being any the wiser.
‘Time to stretch our legs in the staff refectory for a coupla hours, green buddy.’
‘I think you earned it, chief, I surely do,’
There was a party going on beneath the Thelema Arcade. And not just there. At the keyboards sat Spike Laine, Mad John, Ella Guru and Jack Doveston monitoring the incoming. Word had gone out through the matrix and it seemed like every street pirate in the States was looking to join in the action. Mad John chuckled and clapped. ‘I can’t count them all. We got every kid from here to the West Coast on-line. All we have to do is give them the countdown and feed the library program to every one of them at the same moment. Let’s go at say . . . seven thirty. I’ll pass the word.’
Jack had given up on second thoughts. He was somewhere near his twenty-second. They were actually going to hand access to the largest collection of occult books in the world to every street pirate in America who cared to tune in and help himself? This couldn’t be right, could it? And what if it didn’t work? Five years of his life were on that disc. What if something got screwed up and the whole thing got erased? Jack began to chew his finger-nails in a most unheroic manner. In the right-hand top corner of his screen little digits traced t
he countdown.
Seven twenty-five.
It was seven twenty-six. The crowds had been gathering around the MTWTV building for several hours. Elvis, with a small complicated electronic dohickey in one hand and a riot cane in the other, had joined the genuine security team and was swopping jocularities with the crowd. The similarity between this lot and those who attend film galas in the hope of glimpsing some screen demigod or goddess, was not lost on him. These people had come to worship. There were some banners waving. Elvis did not like it one little bit.
A great cheer went up as Wormwood’s limo swung around the block. Elvis shook his head. What had got into these people? And what were they likely to do when the brown stuff hit the fan? Nothing nice, he supposed. The crowd parted as the limo came forward. Elvis backed off toward the main doors. Pressed buttons on his dohickey, a small TV screen flipped up.
Atop the Passing Cloud building the video camera mounted behind the sniper rifle clicked on. Gazed with its electric eye through the night-sight. Relayed what it saw to Elvis’s screen.
Elvis made adjustments. Peered at the tiny screen. The top of his own head came into focus. He touched the controls, the rifle dipped a little. The top of the black car focused. Elvis made further adjustments.
The rifle panned to follow the slowly moving car. Big cheers went up as the limo halted. It was seven twenty-eight.
‘We have a go situation,’ crowed Mad John. Jack tucked into further nails.
Wormwood’s chauffeur stepped out of the car and passed around to open the passenger door. Elvis had the chauffeur’s head perfectly in the cross hairs. His thumb crept toward the remote-control trigger button. The crowd was chanting ‘We want Wayne, we want Wayne’. And suddenly there Wayne was. He raised his arms to the crowd. Kissed away his fingers and flung them wide to embrace all.
Elvis stared hard at his tiny TV screen. A look of dire perplexity clouding his noble features. Wormwood wasn’t there. There was just a dark blot on the screen where he should be. A cloak of darkness. Elvis thumped the dohickey. He focused and refocused. Panned to and fro. The chauffeur was there, the crowd was there, waving frantically. But no Wormwood. Just the dark blot. ‘He’s not there. What should I do?’
‘Just shoot where he should be, chief. And make it quick.’
It was seven twenty-nine. Elvis pressed the trigger button and kept his thumb down. Shots rang out from above the Passing Cloud building. The chauffeur flung himself upon Wormwood and dragged him to the side-walk. The crowd went crazy.
Bullets sang into the plate-glass front of MTWTV. Elvis ducked as shards flew about his head. He lifted his thumb. The firing ceased. People were running in every direction. Screaming, falling, scrambling over each other to escape. Through the chaos Elvis could see the chauffeur carrying the unharmed Wormwood toward him.
‘Phase two, chief, and quick.’ Elvis pressed open the main doors. Ushered Wormwood and the chauffeur through. The station’s security men, guns raised, were following at the hurry up. ‘Get him to Studio One,’ Elvis ordered. ‘All of you, go on.’ It was seven thirty.
‘All systems go,’ cried Mad John. ‘Let’s work together.’
The street was empty The crowd gone. Elvis was alone. He leapt forward, pulling from his jacket what was unmistakably a state-of-the-art limpet mine. This he clamped beneath the petrol tank of the limo. And then he pressed yet another button on his wonderful dohickey. Inside Studio One five smoke grenades went off.
‘Look at that!’ In the chapter house the screens were jumping. The seeker tore through the matrix as the information hit it from every side. It throbbed and pulsed like a living thing.
‘Zero that mother!’ Mad John pounded his keyboard. ‘Look at it. Look at it.’ Jack was behind him. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘It’s not freezing. It’s just pulling it all in from everywhere. And it’s running a program. It’s accessing. Just look at it.’
From across the street Elvis could see the confusion. The front doors of MTWTV burst open. Smoke belched out. Two figures ran through it. Were lost in the smoke. The headlights of the limo blazed on. Doors slammed. The engine screamed. Elvis hit the final button. Wormwood’s car exploded in a billowing gout of flame. ‘Gotcha!’ hooped the King.
‘Gotcha!’ hooped Mad John. ‘Oh no.’
‘Oh no.’
Something locked. Screamed defiance at natural law. Took shape. In the cellar, systems fed back, fused. And then the unthinkable began. The blazing splinters of metal torn from Wormwood’s car hung motionless in the air. And then retraced their separate trajectories at impossible speed. The bowl of flame shrank to nothing and was gone. The limousine reformed. Tyres squealed on the tarmac. It swerved out from the kerb and roared away into the night. Elvis watched it go. Struck dumb with utter disbelief.
The Zen den was on fire. Terminals crackled with flame filling the air with poisonous smoke. Jack was amongst the first to make his escape.
A nice new Porsche screeched to a halt beside the speechless Presley. ‘You just going to stand there all night looking pretty, or are we going to get that motherless son?’ asked Rex Mundi.
12
The Gods have gone. It is a time for men.
Merlin
Get out the meatballs, mother. We’ve come to a fork in the road.
Anon
‘You gonna tell me what you’re doing here or have I just gotta guess?’ Elvis had at last found his voice. He and Rex were speeding along Highway 61 (well, why not?). Wormwood’s limousine maintaining a steady distance and a considerable one.
‘I might ask you the same thing. Is Barry with you?’
‘Good evening Rex, long time no see, as they say.’
‘Good evening Barry. So you guys decided to give 1958 a miss then?’ Rex pressed his foot nearer the floor.
‘Hell no. I went back. Did my stuff. But I had this revelation see.’
‘Ah,’ said Rex in a meaningful manner. ‘You must tell me about it some time.’
‘But how did you find me?’
‘I heard about Wormwood being on the television. I was in the crowd. Wanted to get a look at him up close. And then who did I see skulking about in the shadows pushing little buttons?’
‘I never skulk!’ The King adjusted his quiff in the driving mirror.
‘It was a brave attempt though. The radio-controlled gun, the smoke grenades, the bomb. All you?’
‘All me.’ Elvis nodded proudly. ‘So why ain’t he dead? What happened back there?’
‘Glitchcraft. Don’t ask because I don’t know.’
Elvis grinned. ‘Ooooeee and uh huh’ said he. ‘Sure is good to see you again. But how did you get here, to this time? You got a sprout of your own?’
‘A lady sprout?’ Barry asked.
‘I’m afraid not. I don’t know who brought me back. But I bet that nice Mr Wormwood in the car up ahead might be able to tell me.’
‘You think? Hey Rex, you got any weapons in this car?’
‘Sure have. You’ll never guess what I have in the trunk.’ Elvis wouldn’t, but anyone who had been following the plot would be prepared to venture at least half a guess. ‘It’s one of those amazing... hey what’s he doing?’
Up ahead Wormwood’s car drifted to the side of the highway and bumped gently on to the grass verge. Rex pulled up twenty yards behind and doused the lights. Elvis thumbed down the electric window and stuck his head out. ‘Seems as if he just ran out of gas. Got to be a trick, ain’t it?’ Rex drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. An occasional car sped by on the night-time highway. A chill wind was blowing and it was beginning to rain.
‘I don’t like this. Wait. ..’ Elvis was climbing from the car, determined to finish it here and now. ‘The trunk unlocked?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘But nothing. I been here before and last time I screwed up.’ Elvis skipped around the car and threw open the trunk.
‘Hoopla!’ he was heard to say. ‘This is a 7.62mm M134 General Electric Minigun. U
p to 6,000 rounds per minute. 7.62mm X 51 shells. 1.36kg recoil adaptors. Six muzzle velocity of 869m,’s.’
‘Oh,’ said Rex. ‘So that’s what it is.’ Elvis was struggling under the weight of the preposterous weapon.
‘Hit the headlights Rex. It’s clobbering time!’ Rex shrugged, he hit the headlights. Elvis hit the firing button.
Six thousand rounds a minute. Mind you, can you work out what six thousand 7.62mm rounds actually weigh? Imagine carrying that lot about. It didn’t half make a noise though. And a lot of smoke and those flames that come out at right angles to the barrel. Probably looked best in slow motion. Elvis kept his trigger-finger tight until the rounds were all used up.
The smoke soon cleared. The limousine was perforated wreckage. Its roof had been torn away and lay many yards beyond. The tyres were ribbons of trailing rubber. Nothing, and it must be clearly stated, nothing, could have lived through such a holocaust.
Elvis dropped the great gun to the ground and crept forward. Rex joined him.
They approached the ruination. ‘Guess he did run out of petrol,’ whispered Elvis. ‘Or it would have blown up for sure.’ They stole closer. Peered in through the windowless rear doors. The car was empty. The remains of a complicated remote control unit was still in place over the steering wheel.
‘Son of a gun,’ whistled Elvis. ‘Neat trick.’ With bowel-loosening suddenness something burst into life upon the car’s shredded dashboard. It was the in-car TV.
‘This is MTWTV,’ said the female talking head again. ‘People of America. We bring you live from the studio, Mr Wayne L. Wormwood.’
‘Aw crap, sorry momma.’
It was by no means a long speech. It was just long enough. It was precise and clear. It touched upon topics dear to the hearts of those who heard it. It spoke to them as individuals, yet also as part of the greatest nation on earth. It offered comfort, encouragement, promised peace and prosperity. It lacked cliche and innuendo. It was simple. And those who heard it were moved to utter but a single statement: ‘That is the guy who should be running this country.’