| "ANGEL'S TONGUE ON MARS" CONTINUED |
"Sometimes I wonder if the rapture happened and we're all dead. And this is heaven."
"This feels like heaven to you?"
"Frankly, yes, sometimes it does. Sometimes I'm overcome with feelings of absolute bliss, it makes
me think I'm in heaven."
"Nah, that's the skyheat. It's making you feel that way. They've recorded your brain activity when
you've experienced ecstatic joy and they're sending it back to you as a reward because you've been
a good citizen."
"You don't know that for a fact. Think about it, if you were dead and in heaven they'd have all
eternity to break the news to you that you died."
"They? They who?"
"You know, the people who work for God. They could slowly drop hints until you eventually piece
it all together and realize...you're dead. They're not mean, they don't want to freak you out, they
don't want you to panic. This is heaven after all. But if I am in heaven, when and how did I die?"
Neil Jaggard is listening to Connie Black philosophizing with half his head. With the other half he's
recollecting the night they met. It was at a party in West Van when he first saw her, so sure he
knew her as an acquaintance, positive they'd met before but for the life of him he couldn't
remember where. He introduced himself and asked her where they'd met. She says, Uh uh, no.
She's very polite about it but she's doesn't recall ever having met him. Of course we've met, he
answers. I'm sure I know you. He seems so sincere in his belief that he knows her, Connie herself
wonders if maybe they have met before. He asks her where she works. Turns out she's in real
estate, successful, and she appears in intravision and grid commercials for her company from time
to time. That's probably where you've seen me, she surmises, a lot of people say they recognize
me from the advertising. And you? Neil modestly tells her he dabbles in writing. Oh you do? Yes,
Neil says, underground writing. You probably haven't read any of it. She asks his name and she
says, Oh yes, I've heard of you, I've read some of your material, I'm surprised the government lets
you get away with saying what you do. You're very good, quite a talent, your stuff keeps getting
better and better, really, I mean it, I especially enjoyed that story you wrote about a secret arm of
government that specializes in Sturmabteilung crackdowns on government dissenters. Corrector
squads conducting night raids on family's homes, intimidation, arrests without warrants or trials,
seizure of property. That was inspired fiction. No, it wasn't fiction at all, it was all fact, he informs.
My sources were all credible. Neil realizes she's not just being polite, she really has read his work.
One thing, though, she says, you seem to have a recurring theme in everything you write. You
must have had one hell of a nasty break-up in a relationship. You always seem to touch on how a
medusa-bitch ripped your still-beating heart out of your chest and stuck a dagger into it right before
your eyes, you've been writing that woman into your work forever, she haunts it all, everything I've
read anyway. Haven't you purged her yet? It's time for you to move on, luv. Then she says, I
want you to right me into your next story, base a character on me. I don't know anything about
you, Neil replies. Oh you will, she says with a sly, flirtatious grin.
That was eight weeks ago. Now, in the heat of a late-summer afternoon, Neil is sitting alongside
Connie on the sofa in the living room of her apartment, a condo on the top floor of a building
overlooking the beach in White Rock, BC. Tourists stroll to the end of the pier to watch the crab
fishermen lower their traps into the sea; a dog the colour of yellowed ivory trots quickly along the
sand, absent of a master; a Leonard Cohen song plays on the audio system.
He unbuttons a holster on his hip and extracts his camera-phone.
"All my friends tell me whenever I mention a product or a service favourably in my stories it
persuades them to buy it." With a sweep of his hand Neil combs the long overhang of his jet-black
bangs out of his eyes and onto his crown. He unfolds the camera-phone and lines up Connie's face
on the screen. "Smile for me like you do in those intravision spots."
"No. I don't trust you," she says coquettishly, turning away. "My picture is worth money. You
might put it on the grid."
"Of course your picture is worth money. It's worth a fortune. It would be impossible to put a
dollar figure on that perfect face of yours, good God, you're beautiful, baby. No one has as such
gorgeous features as you."
"You're such a feature-freak."
"Well you've got sugar-features, my dear."
"Priests don't take their religious vows as seriously as you do a pretty face."
"It's as close as I get to church. I'm hurt you say you don't trust me. I would never put your
picture up on the grid. Smile for the camera."
Connie lowers her head and her long, razor-straight cinnamon red hair covers her entire face. With
his left hand Neil brushes it aside.
"Don't reveal my face. I will not be identified," Connie commands.
"You really don't trust me?"
"No. I don't. Do not show my face."
Neil disobediently pushes her hair away again and snaps a picture of her on the camera. She shakes
a finger at him, at that face of his that seems to be permanently stamped with an expression of
amused detachment. "Why'd you do that, hon? I told you not to. Okay, that's it. No more
pictures."
"Sure, baby, whatever you say." Connie snatches the camera-phone from him. "You've heard of
Goebbels, right?" he asks her.
"Josef Goebbels?" Connie asks, looking approvingly at her image on the camera's view-screen.
"Yes, he was Hitler's propaganda chief."
"I'll do the pamphlets."
"Pamphlets for what?" She hands the phone back to Neil.
"Less government, more anarchy, how about that?"
"But that would mean chaos."
"No, I don't advocate chaos. Anarchy doesn't mean an abdication of following obvious laws. Why
is there an assumption that people need the hand of a government to help them run their lives?
When the power goes out and the lights stop working, drivers are still able to navigate the
intersection without the stoplights, right?"
"Conceded. But why are you talking to me about anarchy?"
"Don't tell me you don't feel it. The rising. There's been a call to arms. The government is losing
its hold on us and the people know it. The skyheat isn't effective like it used to be, especially now
that we know it has its limits, that it can't kill us. Even the night-burns, extreme as they may be, are
about as painful as a moderate headache. Only the aged and the weak are vulnerable to the attacks."
"That's what the RV-17 pills are for. To help you get through when the skyheat gets unbearable."
"Wrong!" Neil announces triumphantly. "They zap us with the skyheat to get us on the pills so we
sleepwalk through our existence like compliant zombies."
Connie lets out a contemptuous sigh.
"I got an interesting note in my mailbox today," Neil tells Connie.
"From who?"
"'R'."
"Oh." Connie nods knowingly. She asks, "What did it say?"
"See for yourself." Neil accesses his mail and passes the phone to her.
To: Neil Jaggard
From: R
Subject: Rock 'n' roll...
Message: There are too many of us now. The opposition must join us or surrender. We have the moral imperative
and we have might in numbers. You must recognize your oppressor and resist the oppression. Recognize and resist.
Rock 'n' roll. We have waited patiently. Now is the time to apply the lessons so painfully learned. Our fathers and their
fathers before them fought for the legacy that has been stolen from their heirs. Brothers and sisters, dawn has finally
ascended and a new age of enlightenment is knocking down the front door. It's time for us to answer the call...for today
we fight back!
Connie finishes reading the note and gives the phone back. "What does R expect of his followers?"
Neil looks at her like she's a moron, holstering his phone back on his hip. "You know exactly what.
We've got to kick out the ones who get in the way. The obstructers. The ones who use their
entrenched power to screw and cheat us."
"How are you being oppressed?"
"I told you how my family's assets were diverted to the government when my parents were put
down. You're one of the lucky ones. The government has allowed you to gather some financial
security. They obviously trust you. Others, like me, they don't allow us to accumulate money,
they see us as some kind of threat."
"It's time to mobilize then. But what can you do? What difference can you make?"
"I can't do anything here on the couch with you. But out there? Opportunity will present itself.
And when that window opens, I know to take the chance."
"You're still looking for something to believe in? You've tried religion but the anger remains and
now you want revolution. Isn't life good enough for you? You've got food, a roof over your head,
you've got enough money to buy your jazz recordings."
"Yeah, but so what. What's that got to do with anything? You told me how you had great success
when the real estate market was going go-go insane coming up to 2010, did you not?"
"I did well."
"You want that again."
"Are you asking me if I want it again?"
"No, I am telling you that I know you do."
"It's over." Connie walks into the kitchen and unwraps a nugget of cheese from the fridge.
"Is it over? You don't know that for sure. It could all happen again, like a repeat cycle. It could
happen different and even bigger than before. I'm just saying, Don't give up, take a chance."
The telephone rings the double ring telling Connie someone's at the front door. "Oh hi Ganis," she
says, taking a bite of cheese. "I'll buzz you in. Come on up." Ganis Cramb is an intravision
producer who makes the commercials for her company.
"It's Ganis," Connie tells Neil. "He's discovered a new wine and he's been dying to bring me over a
bottle. You want a bite of this cheese? It's really good. Gorgonzola. It tastes like blue."
Connie feeds Neil a nibble and together they wait in the kitchen. "That cheese has a bite to it,
strong," Neil says. Then he mentions, "I've decided to stop working out, I'm not going to the gym
any more."
"What brought that about?"
"I think we have to prepare ourselves for certain future realities. Surely we'll need to accept
lifestyle adjustments in the future and I want to be ready for it, ready to give up things that might
seem impossible to live without at this period in my life. I started thinking that I probably won't be
hitting the weights and running three miles every day in the old folks home. I want to feel okay
with my body even when I'm not working out and getting exercise."
Connie pats Neil's tummy. "You've got an excuse for everything. Now you've got a rationale for
being lazy. I couldn't do that. I'm addicted to the perspiration rush."
There's a knock on the door and Connie shouts, "It's open!"
Ganis Cramb, a tall, skinny man with a small, longish head and thin lips, homosexual, walks through
the hallway holding a white plastic bag.
"Hi Connie. You will love this vino," he tells her. "It's a cabernet sauvignon from the Central
Valley region of Chile. Hello Neil."
Neil nods hello to Ganis. Ganis steps toward Connie stiffly and hands the bag to her. She pulls the
bottles out and puts them on the kitchen counter then peels the seal off one of the bottles, digs a
corkscrew out of a drawer and uncorks it. "Would you like a glass of wine?" she asks Neil.
"Sure," Neil says.
Connie pours three glasses and hands one to each man.
"You're right, very nice, very smooth," Connie says, admiring the taste.
"A colleague who just returned from an assignment in South American turned me on to this grape."
A high-strung personality, when Ganis speaks his sentences come out fast and nervous. "I bought a
box of twelve bottles. I'd like to buy the barrel this bottle came from and put it in my kitchen."
Ganis quickly asks, "How's the writing going, Neil?"
"Looking for a new story idea."
"Neil wants to start a revolution," Connie says.
"The revolution is well under way, like the one before it and the one before that," Neil corrects.
"Oh I know it is," Ganis wholeheartedly agrees. "And the media is what you have to watch out for."
Neil is surprised he isn't forced to sell his argument to Connie's friend.
"Obvious pro-government bias in news journalism, is that what you're getting at?" Connie asks
Ganis. "The news outlets are all state owned and operated so that's pretty well assured to happen."
"No, I'm not talking about how all we get on news is self-glory by government on their latest
initiative, be it providing purified H20 to desperately poor families living on land contaminated by
waste after ignoring their pleas for decades, or whatever else they may be crowing about. I'm
talking about something much more tangible. In a country like Canada, where guns are outlawed
and physical violence is rare, intravision can be used as a blunt weapon. To me, intravision is
completely unfair. I mean, it's just you, one person watching. But behind that I.V. screen in front
of you in your living room, there are hundreds of people: technicians, performers, writers,
directors, witches, sorcerers, all of those people working together to get into your brain, to occupy
your head. And you, the viewer, are just one person. We play on the viewer's need to conform.
Or we make you feel like you should conform to what we dictate as the societal norms. I don't
want to feel bad about myself when I watch intravision. We play with your insecurities...and if
you're neurotic and easily plied, you're in trouble, because we are frightfully good at what we do.
Then you've got the visual aspect of intravision. Try this sometime. Turn on the I.V. and mute it
and put a song on your music player. I guarantee you that you'll find yourself watching the
intravision screen, not listening to the music. The eyes. Eyesight is extremely powerful, it
overpowers the other senses. And intravision uses both sight and sound. Very powerful. It always
wins. Ultimately it comes down to trust. With that kind of power on the other side of the screen
you really have to ask yourself, Do I trust intravision? I'm not entirely sure the viewer should."
"I'll drink to that," Connie says, raising her glass in toast to Ganis' speech. "Either of you like to hit
the Embassy for supper and a drink?"
Neil says nothing. "I've got to check in at the station for an editing session in two hours," Ganis
says, declining.
"Oh come on. We can get a table in ten minutes and finish a meal in an hour," Connie tells him.
"Connie, the Embassy?" Neil interjects. "The service is abominable. What about Rock City? Or
the Debt Machine?"
"Rock City it is then. Ganis?"
"Can't do it. You two go."
"It sounds like you're having some serious issues of personal conscience with your line of work,"
Neil says to Ganis.
"I got into the business to expose corporate and government corruption, stuff like that, stuff that
would make the world a better place."
"How noble of you," Connie says with a good-natured touch of sarcasm.
"Yeah, I know it sounds corny but that's where my head was at. How was I to know I was
entering the weapons industry."
"How do you mean?" Neil inquires.
"If you think about it, intravision could be used as an extremely effective weapon. Here's a story
angle for you, Neil. With intravision gee becoming more and more interactive now that the
participant is able to order tailor-made shows and news broadcasts - and with the advertising
designed to fit the viewer's personality profile and finances - there is vast potential to do
psychological damage to the viewer as well. You could make them paranoid, say, by letting them
know through the broadcasts that they're being closely watched and by sending messages that
unbalance them emotionally. Combine that with the skyheat and LSD secretly filtered into the
water supply and you have yourself quite a tool to manipulate an adversary."
"A hallucinogenic? In the water supply?" Connie replies incredulously.
"It sounds crazy, yes, but in times of war...anything goes. And it would be impossible to prove if
you complained to corrector enforcement. They wouldn't know how to deal with something like
that. They'd say your nuts!"
"Quite," Connie agrees.
"An electronic home invasion could be staged through the media of the person who's being targeted.
Intravision, radio, the grid...all could be intercepted and jammed with false broadcasts aimed to
harass enemies."
"Talk like that makes me wonder about you sometimes, Ganis," Connie says with a frown.
"Far fetched, yes, but not impossible. What if you had a history of trying to kill yourself and all the
shows - and commercials - were counselling you to commit suicide?"
"You sound like you had a run-in with your I.V. provider."
"No making fun of me now," Ganis swats back at Connie. "I just believe a person should keep their
head out of the box. It's dangerous in there. Potentially anyway. Consider this good advice from a
friend who works in the field."
"Ganis, forgive me for being obvious," Neil says, "but how can you be saying such things? If you
feel so strongly about it why the hell are you still working in the intravision industry?"
"I have rent to pay just like everyone else. Believe me, I know it's heretical for me to be
badmouthing the very industry that puts food on my table. I'm considering a change soon anyway."
"How long have you been with Hammerstein Communications?" Neil asks.
"Nine years."
"Has what you're telling us about actually been done, Ganis? Have people been targeted in such a
way?" he puts to him.
Neil notices Ganis' body stiffen a little more than it usually is. His tone becoming discrete, Ganis
says, "I've said enough. I do have a story to tell and one day you might hear it. But not now."
Ganis walks to the door signalling his departure. "Gotta go. I have to check in with my case
worker at the lunatic asylum."
Neil sniffs, Connie giggles. Ganis says, his serious expression softening into a smile, "I have a
meeting to attend with some executives before the session."
"Thanks for the wine," Connie says.
"Enjoy it. Bye you two."
Ganis leaves and Connie and Neil go out for dinner. Walking down the promenade they are startled
by the howl of an angry woman as they pass a lamp post. Behind the streetlight they see a man and
a woman locked in a fight, the woman pulling the man's head down by the hair with one hand and
punching him with her other fist - fast, vicious jabs - on the side of his head below his left ear, his
hair a tangled mess where she's striking him.
"How could you do this to me?" says the agitated high-heeled woman. She whacks him in the head
again. "How could you? What did I do to deserve this, huh?" The man says nothing, appearing
dazed or possibly drunk.
"I hate to see that," Neil says as he and Connie step past the quarrelling couple.
"I do too," Connie says uneasily.
"Some things should be kept in the privacy of the home. Sex is one thing. Fighting is another. No
one wants to see that in public."
"Oh Neil, how can you say something like that? It's horrible she's hitting him. Shouldn't we report
them or something?" With a worried frown Connie glances back over her shoulder at the altercation.
"It's their business," Neil replies. Neil figures the man may very well deserve the beating he's
receiving. But he doesn't say this to Connie. "Spanking kids, too," Neil adds. "That should be
done privately inside the home."
"This feels like heaven to you?"
"Frankly, yes, sometimes it does. Sometimes I'm overcome with feelings of absolute bliss, it makes
me think I'm in heaven."
"Nah, that's the skyheat. It's making you feel that way. They've recorded your brain activity when
you've experienced ecstatic joy and they're sending it back to you as a reward because you've been
a good citizen."
"You don't know that for a fact. Think about it, if you were dead and in heaven they'd have all
eternity to break the news to you that you died."
"They? They who?"
"You know, the people who work for God. They could slowly drop hints until you eventually piece
it all together and realize...you're dead. They're not mean, they don't want to freak you out, they
don't want you to panic. This is heaven after all. But if I am in heaven, when and how did I die?"
Neil Jaggard is listening to Connie Black philosophizing with half his head. With the other half he's
recollecting the night they met. It was at a party in West Van when he first saw her, so sure he
knew her as an acquaintance, positive they'd met before but for the life of him he couldn't
remember where. He introduced himself and asked her where they'd met. She says, Uh uh, no.
She's very polite about it but she's doesn't recall ever having met him. Of course we've met, he
answers. I'm sure I know you. He seems so sincere in his belief that he knows her, Connie herself
wonders if maybe they have met before. He asks her where she works. Turns out she's in real
estate, successful, and she appears in intravision and grid commercials for her company from time
to time. That's probably where you've seen me, she surmises, a lot of people say they recognize
me from the advertising. And you? Neil modestly tells her he dabbles in writing. Oh you do? Yes,
Neil says, underground writing. You probably haven't read any of it. She asks his name and she
says, Oh yes, I've heard of you, I've read some of your material, I'm surprised the government lets
you get away with saying what you do. You're very good, quite a talent, your stuff keeps getting
better and better, really, I mean it, I especially enjoyed that story you wrote about a secret arm of
government that specializes in Sturmabteilung crackdowns on government dissenters. Corrector
squads conducting night raids on family's homes, intimidation, arrests without warrants or trials,
seizure of property. That was inspired fiction. No, it wasn't fiction at all, it was all fact, he informs.
My sources were all credible. Neil realizes she's not just being polite, she really has read his work.
One thing, though, she says, you seem to have a recurring theme in everything you write. You
must have had one hell of a nasty break-up in a relationship. You always seem to touch on how a
medusa-bitch ripped your still-beating heart out of your chest and stuck a dagger into it right before
your eyes, you've been writing that woman into your work forever, she haunts it all, everything I've
read anyway. Haven't you purged her yet? It's time for you to move on, luv. Then she says, I
want you to right me into your next story, base a character on me. I don't know anything about
you, Neil replies. Oh you will, she says with a sly, flirtatious grin.
That was eight weeks ago. Now, in the heat of a late-summer afternoon, Neil is sitting alongside
Connie on the sofa in the living room of her apartment, a condo on the top floor of a building
overlooking the beach in White Rock, BC. Tourists stroll to the end of the pier to watch the crab
fishermen lower their traps into the sea; a dog the colour of yellowed ivory trots quickly along the
sand, absent of a master; a Leonard Cohen song plays on the audio system.
He unbuttons a holster on his hip and extracts his camera-phone.
"All my friends tell me whenever I mention a product or a service favourably in my stories it
persuades them to buy it." With a sweep of his hand Neil combs the long overhang of his jet-black
bangs out of his eyes and onto his crown. He unfolds the camera-phone and lines up Connie's face
on the screen. "Smile for me like you do in those intravision spots."
"No. I don't trust you," she says coquettishly, turning away. "My picture is worth money. You
might put it on the grid."
"Of course your picture is worth money. It's worth a fortune. It would be impossible to put a
dollar figure on that perfect face of yours, good God, you're beautiful, baby. No one has as such
gorgeous features as you."
"You're such a feature-freak."
"Well you've got sugar-features, my dear."
"Priests don't take their religious vows as seriously as you do a pretty face."
"It's as close as I get to church. I'm hurt you say you don't trust me. I would never put your
picture up on the grid. Smile for the camera."
Connie lowers her head and her long, razor-straight cinnamon red hair covers her entire face. With
his left hand Neil brushes it aside.
"Don't reveal my face. I will not be identified," Connie commands.
"You really don't trust me?"
"No. I don't. Do not show my face."
Neil disobediently pushes her hair away again and snaps a picture of her on the camera. She shakes
a finger at him, at that face of his that seems to be permanently stamped with an expression of
amused detachment. "Why'd you do that, hon? I told you not to. Okay, that's it. No more
pictures."
"Sure, baby, whatever you say." Connie snatches the camera-phone from him. "You've heard of
Goebbels, right?" he asks her.
"Josef Goebbels?" Connie asks, looking approvingly at her image on the camera's view-screen.
"Yes, he was Hitler's propaganda chief."
"I'll do the pamphlets."
"Pamphlets for what?" She hands the phone back to Neil.
"Less government, more anarchy, how about that?"
"But that would mean chaos."
"No, I don't advocate chaos. Anarchy doesn't mean an abdication of following obvious laws. Why
is there an assumption that people need the hand of a government to help them run their lives?
When the power goes out and the lights stop working, drivers are still able to navigate the
intersection without the stoplights, right?"
"Conceded. But why are you talking to me about anarchy?"
"Don't tell me you don't feel it. The rising. There's been a call to arms. The government is losing
its hold on us and the people know it. The skyheat isn't effective like it used to be, especially now
that we know it has its limits, that it can't kill us. Even the night-burns, extreme as they may be, are
about as painful as a moderate headache. Only the aged and the weak are vulnerable to the attacks."
"That's what the RV-17 pills are for. To help you get through when the skyheat gets unbearable."
"Wrong!" Neil announces triumphantly. "They zap us with the skyheat to get us on the pills so we
sleepwalk through our existence like compliant zombies."
Connie lets out a contemptuous sigh.
"I got an interesting note in my mailbox today," Neil tells Connie.
"From who?"
"'R'."
"Oh." Connie nods knowingly. She asks, "What did it say?"
"See for yourself." Neil accesses his mail and passes the phone to her.
To: Neil Jaggard
From: R
Subject: Rock 'n' roll...
Message: There are too many of us now. The opposition must join us or surrender. We have the moral imperative
and we have might in numbers. You must recognize your oppressor and resist the oppression. Recognize and resist.
Rock 'n' roll. We have waited patiently. Now is the time to apply the lessons so painfully learned. Our fathers and their
fathers before them fought for the legacy that has been stolen from their heirs. Brothers and sisters, dawn has finally
ascended and a new age of enlightenment is knocking down the front door. It's time for us to answer the call...for today
we fight back!
Connie finishes reading the note and gives the phone back. "What does R expect of his followers?"
Neil looks at her like she's a moron, holstering his phone back on his hip. "You know exactly what.
We've got to kick out the ones who get in the way. The obstructers. The ones who use their
entrenched power to screw and cheat us."
"How are you being oppressed?"
"I told you how my family's assets were diverted to the government when my parents were put
down. You're one of the lucky ones. The government has allowed you to gather some financial
security. They obviously trust you. Others, like me, they don't allow us to accumulate money,
they see us as some kind of threat."
"It's time to mobilize then. But what can you do? What difference can you make?"
"I can't do anything here on the couch with you. But out there? Opportunity will present itself.
And when that window opens, I know to take the chance."
"You're still looking for something to believe in? You've tried religion but the anger remains and
now you want revolution. Isn't life good enough for you? You've got food, a roof over your head,
you've got enough money to buy your jazz recordings."
"Yeah, but so what. What's that got to do with anything? You told me how you had great success
when the real estate market was going go-go insane coming up to 2010, did you not?"
"I did well."
"You want that again."
"Are you asking me if I want it again?"
"No, I am telling you that I know you do."
"It's over." Connie walks into the kitchen and unwraps a nugget of cheese from the fridge.
"Is it over? You don't know that for sure. It could all happen again, like a repeat cycle. It could
happen different and even bigger than before. I'm just saying, Don't give up, take a chance."
The telephone rings the double ring telling Connie someone's at the front door. "Oh hi Ganis," she
says, taking a bite of cheese. "I'll buzz you in. Come on up." Ganis Cramb is an intravision
producer who makes the commercials for her company.
"It's Ganis," Connie tells Neil. "He's discovered a new wine and he's been dying to bring me over a
bottle. You want a bite of this cheese? It's really good. Gorgonzola. It tastes like blue."
Connie feeds Neil a nibble and together they wait in the kitchen. "That cheese has a bite to it,
strong," Neil says. Then he mentions, "I've decided to stop working out, I'm not going to the gym
any more."
"What brought that about?"
"I think we have to prepare ourselves for certain future realities. Surely we'll need to accept
lifestyle adjustments in the future and I want to be ready for it, ready to give up things that might
seem impossible to live without at this period in my life. I started thinking that I probably won't be
hitting the weights and running three miles every day in the old folks home. I want to feel okay
with my body even when I'm not working out and getting exercise."
Connie pats Neil's tummy. "You've got an excuse for everything. Now you've got a rationale for
being lazy. I couldn't do that. I'm addicted to the perspiration rush."
There's a knock on the door and Connie shouts, "It's open!"
Ganis Cramb, a tall, skinny man with a small, longish head and thin lips, homosexual, walks through
the hallway holding a white plastic bag.
"Hi Connie. You will love this vino," he tells her. "It's a cabernet sauvignon from the Central
Valley region of Chile. Hello Neil."
Neil nods hello to Ganis. Ganis steps toward Connie stiffly and hands the bag to her. She pulls the
bottles out and puts them on the kitchen counter then peels the seal off one of the bottles, digs a
corkscrew out of a drawer and uncorks it. "Would you like a glass of wine?" she asks Neil.
"Sure," Neil says.
Connie pours three glasses and hands one to each man.
"You're right, very nice, very smooth," Connie says, admiring the taste.
"A colleague who just returned from an assignment in South American turned me on to this grape."
A high-strung personality, when Ganis speaks his sentences come out fast and nervous. "I bought a
box of twelve bottles. I'd like to buy the barrel this bottle came from and put it in my kitchen."
Ganis quickly asks, "How's the writing going, Neil?"
"Looking for a new story idea."
"Neil wants to start a revolution," Connie says.
"The revolution is well under way, like the one before it and the one before that," Neil corrects.
"Oh I know it is," Ganis wholeheartedly agrees. "And the media is what you have to watch out for."
Neil is surprised he isn't forced to sell his argument to Connie's friend.
"Obvious pro-government bias in news journalism, is that what you're getting at?" Connie asks
Ganis. "The news outlets are all state owned and operated so that's pretty well assured to happen."
"No, I'm not talking about how all we get on news is self-glory by government on their latest
initiative, be it providing purified H20 to desperately poor families living on land contaminated by
waste after ignoring their pleas for decades, or whatever else they may be crowing about. I'm
talking about something much more tangible. In a country like Canada, where guns are outlawed
and physical violence is rare, intravision can be used as a blunt weapon. To me, intravision is
completely unfair. I mean, it's just you, one person watching. But behind that I.V. screen in front
of you in your living room, there are hundreds of people: technicians, performers, writers,
directors, witches, sorcerers, all of those people working together to get into your brain, to occupy
your head. And you, the viewer, are just one person. We play on the viewer's need to conform.
Or we make you feel like you should conform to what we dictate as the societal norms. I don't
want to feel bad about myself when I watch intravision. We play with your insecurities...and if
you're neurotic and easily plied, you're in trouble, because we are frightfully good at what we do.
Then you've got the visual aspect of intravision. Try this sometime. Turn on the I.V. and mute it
and put a song on your music player. I guarantee you that you'll find yourself watching the
intravision screen, not listening to the music. The eyes. Eyesight is extremely powerful, it
overpowers the other senses. And intravision uses both sight and sound. Very powerful. It always
wins. Ultimately it comes down to trust. With that kind of power on the other side of the screen
you really have to ask yourself, Do I trust intravision? I'm not entirely sure the viewer should."
"I'll drink to that," Connie says, raising her glass in toast to Ganis' speech. "Either of you like to hit
the Embassy for supper and a drink?"
Neil says nothing. "I've got to check in at the station for an editing session in two hours," Ganis
says, declining.
"Oh come on. We can get a table in ten minutes and finish a meal in an hour," Connie tells him.
"Connie, the Embassy?" Neil interjects. "The service is abominable. What about Rock City? Or
the Debt Machine?"
"Rock City it is then. Ganis?"
"Can't do it. You two go."
"It sounds like you're having some serious issues of personal conscience with your line of work,"
Neil says to Ganis.
"I got into the business to expose corporate and government corruption, stuff like that, stuff that
would make the world a better place."
"How noble of you," Connie says with a good-natured touch of sarcasm.
"Yeah, I know it sounds corny but that's where my head was at. How was I to know I was
entering the weapons industry."
"How do you mean?" Neil inquires.
"If you think about it, intravision could be used as an extremely effective weapon. Here's a story
angle for you, Neil. With intravision gee becoming more and more interactive now that the
participant is able to order tailor-made shows and news broadcasts - and with the advertising
designed to fit the viewer's personality profile and finances - there is vast potential to do
psychological damage to the viewer as well. You could make them paranoid, say, by letting them
know through the broadcasts that they're being closely watched and by sending messages that
unbalance them emotionally. Combine that with the skyheat and LSD secretly filtered into the
water supply and you have yourself quite a tool to manipulate an adversary."
"A hallucinogenic? In the water supply?" Connie replies incredulously.
"It sounds crazy, yes, but in times of war...anything goes. And it would be impossible to prove if
you complained to corrector enforcement. They wouldn't know how to deal with something like
that. They'd say your nuts!"
"Quite," Connie agrees.
"An electronic home invasion could be staged through the media of the person who's being targeted.
Intravision, radio, the grid...all could be intercepted and jammed with false broadcasts aimed to
harass enemies."
"Talk like that makes me wonder about you sometimes, Ganis," Connie says with a frown.
"Far fetched, yes, but not impossible. What if you had a history of trying to kill yourself and all the
shows - and commercials - were counselling you to commit suicide?"
"You sound like you had a run-in with your I.V. provider."
"No making fun of me now," Ganis swats back at Connie. "I just believe a person should keep their
head out of the box. It's dangerous in there. Potentially anyway. Consider this good advice from a
friend who works in the field."
"Ganis, forgive me for being obvious," Neil says, "but how can you be saying such things? If you
feel so strongly about it why the hell are you still working in the intravision industry?"
"I have rent to pay just like everyone else. Believe me, I know it's heretical for me to be
badmouthing the very industry that puts food on my table. I'm considering a change soon anyway."
"How long have you been with Hammerstein Communications?" Neil asks.
"Nine years."
"Has what you're telling us about actually been done, Ganis? Have people been targeted in such a
way?" he puts to him.
Neil notices Ganis' body stiffen a little more than it usually is. His tone becoming discrete, Ganis
says, "I've said enough. I do have a story to tell and one day you might hear it. But not now."
Ganis walks to the door signalling his departure. "Gotta go. I have to check in with my case
worker at the lunatic asylum."
Neil sniffs, Connie giggles. Ganis says, his serious expression softening into a smile, "I have a
meeting to attend with some executives before the session."
"Thanks for the wine," Connie says.
"Enjoy it. Bye you two."
Ganis leaves and Connie and Neil go out for dinner. Walking down the promenade they are startled
by the howl of an angry woman as they pass a lamp post. Behind the streetlight they see a man and
a woman locked in a fight, the woman pulling the man's head down by the hair with one hand and
punching him with her other fist - fast, vicious jabs - on the side of his head below his left ear, his
hair a tangled mess where she's striking him.
"How could you do this to me?" says the agitated high-heeled woman. She whacks him in the head
again. "How could you? What did I do to deserve this, huh?" The man says nothing, appearing
dazed or possibly drunk.
"I hate to see that," Neil says as he and Connie step past the quarrelling couple.
"I do too," Connie says uneasily.
"Some things should be kept in the privacy of the home. Sex is one thing. Fighting is another. No
one wants to see that in public."
"Oh Neil, how can you say something like that? It's horrible she's hitting him. Shouldn't we report
them or something?" With a worried frown Connie glances back over her shoulder at the altercation.
"It's their business," Neil replies. Neil figures the man may very well deserve the beating he's
receiving. But he doesn't say this to Connie. "Spanking kids, too," Neil adds. "That should be
done privately inside the home."
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