Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy Part 18

Two Berkeley acid-heads, known on Telegraph Avenue as The Cat and The Dog, dreamed up a more intense disinformation matrix in 1980. "What would happen," The Cat asked one day in the Cafe Mediterraneum, "if we bought a truck and painted on the side of it INTERNATIONAL COCAINE IMPORTERS INC., and drove it around the streets?"

"In Berkeley," The Dog said, "the cops would just laugh. They'd be sure it was another put-on by the Hog Farm or the Merry Pranksters or somebody. But in San Francisco they wouldn't take a chance. The first cop would stop the truck and search it."

"Nah," said an unsuccessful poet named Robert W. Anton. "They're more hip than that in San Francisco. But in L.A ...."

The debate spread from the Med to Moe's, from Moe's to Sather Gate, leapt the Bay to appear in Herb Caen's column, eventually spread from coast to coast as a tag-end poser to cap all discussions of the Vlad Enigma. Finally, taking the logical experimental step, a San Francisco theologian named Malaclypse the Younger actually painted a truck in very tasteful and professional lettering and drove it around the Bay Area for all to see: INTERNATIONAL COCAINE IMPORTERS INC.

LIMA-SAN DIEGO-VANCOUVER "THINGS GO BETTER WITH c.o.kE"

He was stopped and searched three times the first week-once in Sausalito, which is the cocaine and Vaseline capital of Unistat and has particularly suspicious cops. He was never stopped in Berkeley. After the second week he was no longer stopped in San Francisco. Immediately a whole fleet of similar trucks began to appear.

Disinformation had been incarnated. "All hail Eris," said Malaclypse, a pious man in his own odd way. Virtually none of the trucks was stopped and searched after the first month. Cops who had made horses' a.s.ses of themselves in the joking phase of this uprising of surrealist politics refused to take the risk of being laughed at again. n.o.body cared to guess how many of the trucks were really carrying cocaine.

It all became academic when victimless crimes were redefined in the Code Hubbard.

DO NOT GO GENTLE.

Do not go gentle into that good night: Rage, rage against the dying of the light.-DYLAN THOMAS GALACTIC ARCHIVES:.

President Hubbard's way of encouraging the Longevity Revolution was characteristic. She established a yearly reward of $100,000 for the nonscientist nonscientist who made the most important contribution to the fight against aging. Since the scientists engaged in life-extension research were already one of the two most heavily funded groups in Unistat (the other was the s.p.a.ce engineers), scientists were amused, but not offended, by this wild idea. who made the most important contribution to the fight against aging. Since the scientists engaged in life-extension research were already one of the two most heavily funded groups in Unistat (the other was the s.p.a.ce engineers), scientists were amused, but not offended, by this wild idea.

The first year there were 5,237 entries submitted. A spot check by the Beast showed that 4,023 came from the new leisure cla.s.s-ex-workers who had invented themselves out of several jobs and had $50,000 to $80,000 annual incomes. The others came from people who had been unemployed by these inventions. Evidently, many of them were getting bored with a life that consisted mostly of f.u.c.king, TV, and vacations, even though that had been what most primates imagined they would do if they didn't have to work for a living.

The second year there were over 30,000 entries-much as Hubbard had expected.

The Longevity Revolution was having its inevitable effect. People who were expecting to live for centuries instead of decades were spontaneously taking the Next Step in their thinking. The hominids of Terra were becoming reoriented to the search for Immortality.

And a second trend was becoming obvious. The majority of practical, testable hyper-longevity proposals were coming in from the colonists in the L5 s.p.a.ce-cities.

The domesticated primates of Terra were beginning to consciously guide their own evolution toward becoming Cosmic Immortals.

To Justin Case it appeared that the administration was the first government in history to take Beethoven seriously. To him, Hubbard's whole philosophy was obviously derived from the last movement of the Ninth. Ninth.

THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY.

Since a cat has the Buddha mind, even Marvin Gardens had had his own experience of the First n.o.ble Truth. He had made the mistake, once, in 1981, of eating a heavy slice of hash-candy from Afghanistan instead of his after-dinner snort of c.o.ke and somehow there was an eruption of activity in the grief circuits of the thalamus. The tramp did not move. The tramp did not move. He saw the skull beneath the skin, like Eliot; the tears poured and he sat there, weeping for allflesh, for alltormented flesh, for alltormentedf.u.c.kingflesh, howling in anguish at the withdrawal of the nipple of self-absorption. He was in Belsen. He stood in the white light as Hiros.h.i.+ma was incinerated. He watched the Grand Army retreat in the snow from Moscow. The tramp fell eternally toward the sidewalk and he saw the wolves close in on the terrified caribou, the smirk of Caligula and all s.a.d.i.s.ts everywhere, the parents of a thousand wars weeping with him over murdered children ("We should be gentle with children," a Voice said reproachfully from a window in s.p.a.ce), and for a minute he had a crazy religious vision that WE HAVE TO STOP THE KILLING there is no other way and it is too late for another alternative it is exactly that simple and you can even repeat it in italics He saw the skull beneath the skin, like Eliot; the tears poured and he sat there, weeping for allflesh, for alltormented flesh, for alltormentedf.u.c.kingflesh, howling in anguish at the withdrawal of the nipple of self-absorption. He was in Belsen. He stood in the white light as Hiros.h.i.+ma was incinerated. He watched the Grand Army retreat in the snow from Moscow. The tramp fell eternally toward the sidewalk and he saw the wolves close in on the terrified caribou, the smirk of Caligula and all s.a.d.i.s.ts everywhere, the parents of a thousand wars weeping with him over murdered children ("We should be gentle with children," a Voice said reproachfully from a window in s.p.a.ce), and for a minute he had a crazy religious vision that WE HAVE TO STOP THE KILLING there is no other way and it is too late for another alternative it is exactly that simple and you can even repeat it in italics we have to stop the killing we have to stop the killing and he was so excited at the sudden clarity of it that he could see his whole future as nonstop witnessing to the truth of this vision. He would invent his own TV show and become a supersalesman and sell it to the top network and it would be the Corporal Works of Mercy Hour. It would have no acts of violence or hurting. It would just be decent people doing decent things, as enumerated in the famous pa.s.sage from Aquinas: visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, aiding the oppressed, comforting the afflicted, and praying for us all. and he was so excited at the sudden clarity of it that he could see his whole future as nonstop witnessing to the truth of this vision. He would invent his own TV show and become a supersalesman and sell it to the top network and it would be the Corporal Works of Mercy Hour. It would have no acts of violence or hurting. It would just be decent people doing decent things, as enumerated in the famous pa.s.sage from Aquinas: visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless, aiding the oppressed, comforting the afflicted, and praying for us all.

It was that simple, beyond all the irony and agony of his tortured humor, and you could even say it in one word: ahimsa. ahimsa.

Yea-a-a-ay, G.o.d! Glory, glory, glory.

He staggered to his desk to record this revelation, but when he got there microamnesia had already set in and he couldn't remember what it was that had seemed so clear and important, but another Voice was coming through and he scrawled rapidly: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May At that very moment, in Los Angeles, Eve Hubbard decided she was going to run for President.

THE UNIVERSE DECIDES.

"So that," Justin Case concludes triumphantly (he is dreaming about giving a lecture to an audience of trans-vest.i.tes), "the elements in the montage may be of any number-five, fifteen, fifty, whatever-and there be any emotions you can imagine implicit in each one of them separately. Nonetheless, the total emotional effect emerges from the montage, not from the elements. Film is the visual demonstration of Fuller's synergetic geometry."

"You're fuller s.h.i.+t!" one of the transvest.i.tes yelled.

Who s.h.i.+t? Justin s.h.i.+t. Bulls.h.i.+t! Who s.h.i.+t? He was being carried around by the time-dwarfs in a jeweled chair wearing the Crown of Thorns. It was Mardi Gras. He was having a swell time. He decided to go on lecturing them.

"The montage of Chinatown or Chapel Perilous takes us to the Lair of Fu Manchu-the center of Power-the occult Nine Unknown Illuminated Ones who rule the world-the secret of capitalism and owners.h.i.+p-the cruel Cross that separates inside from outside, without windows."

But then he wet his pants and they were all laughing at him, laughing mockingly and childishly, as they closed in with the tar and feathers. They had found out he was a no-good s.h.i.+t.

"In other words," Blake Williams lectures, "what collapses the state vector and er um determines or ah least ways brings it about that a new quantum state appears can only be a Hidden Variable implicate in the whole system-the biggest whole system."

"You mean when Ignatz throws the brick-"

"If Ignatz is a quantum physicist and is throwing a photon, Krazy or Schrodinger's Cat can be in any of several eigenstates, um, yes, so that in effect the whole universe partic.i.p.ates in the ah decision as to whether the Kat will be hit by the brick um ah or the photon ah as the case may be."

"Professor," Natalie asked finally, driven to the Edge, "are you putting me on?"

"My dear I am um merely giving you the most consistent and literal interpretation of Bell's Theorem as developed by Dr. Jeffrey Chew at U.C.-Berkeley and Dr. Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics." The Tao of Physics."

"The whole universe decides?" decides?"

"Well there is um a certain degree of metaphor involved...."

"You know, Professor"-Natalie sits up and gives him a level glance-"I met a midget once, a nasty little son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h, but he told me something I never forgot. All that exists is metaphor, he said, and whoever controls our metaphors controls us." whoever controls our metaphors controls us."

"As an anthropologist," Blake Williams said, "I must agree. Are we living in an occult thriller, a p.o.r.n movie, a philosophical treatise, a sci-fi novel? It depends on which parts of our experience we choose to highlight. That brings us to the question: Are we writing our life-scripts, or is there a Hidden Variable, as the new quantum theories suggest?"

"You mean the whole universe will decide what we're gonna do next?" Natalie wanted a straight answer.

"Well um that's the alternative to saying there are multiple universes where anything that can happen does happen ah and it's quite democratic, really, since every lesser system within the whole system gets its vote."

Natalie's semantic circuit was working on overload. "You're telling me that each of us and the chair over there and each atom in us and in the chair and in Marvin's cocaine-we all get one vote?"

"Um perhaps we have carried the metaphor till it staggers ..."

"It sounds like Mozart's music," Natalie said, seeing the window again. "All as mechanical as a clockwork and yet as free as a dream...."

h.e.l.l.

GALACTIC ARCHIVES:.

President Hubbard had largely abolished crime by abolis.h.i.+ng prisons.

This was one of her most astonis.h.i.+ng achievements, since most primates thought prisons were preventatives, not causes, of crime.

Eve Hubbard, needless to say, had always been a unique Terran, which was why she was the first Black President of Unistat. Although she was, like most brilliant people, extremely good-looking-the genetic link between health, hedonism, cleverness, and good looks (the "bright-eyes-and-bushy-tails" gestalt) is true in all species on all known planets-Eve had dropped out of films after a smash success as the supers.e.xed ebony android in Gentlemen Prefer Clones Gentlemen Prefer Clones. She had gone on to major in philosophy at UCLA, and was almost denied her Ph.D. because her thesis was a thorough rejection of all philosophies. .h.i.therto invented by Terran primates. She went on to become one of the first neurogeneticists. In fact, it was due to certain discoveries in primate genetics that she had decided to go into politics next.

The Code Hubbard, the most important revision of primate jurisprudence since the Code Napoleon, divided all crimes into three cla.s.ses.

Crimes against convention-so-called victimless crimes-were not penalized at all. A citizen could be interrogated about each behavior only after complaints by a minimum of one hundred neighbors. The interrogators, a group of trained neurogeneticists, would then publish a report, either mildly recommending relocation relocation of the heretic, or, much more commonly, strongly advising the neighbors to mind their own business. of the heretic, or, much more commonly, strongly advising the neighbors to mind their own business.

Many libertarians objected to this, since they wanted victimless crimes abolished utterly. Hubbard had pragmatically realized that such libertarian penology was impractical until the primates totally outgrew the morality delusion.

Those who chose relocation were a.s.signed by the Beast to an environment where their heresy was "normal." Most of them found that the Beast recommended an L5 s.p.a.ce-city, and most of them liked it when they got there. They had futique futique genes. genes.

Many of the heretics, of course, chose to stay where they were and go on annoying the bejesus out of their neighbors. This is the typical recalcitrant streak found in certain domesticated primates on all planets.

Crimes against property were regarded as improper economics requiring adjustment. The felon was compelled to pay in full the value of that which had been appropriated or destroyed. If unable to pay, the felon then had a literal "debt to society." The government paid the victim, and the felon repaid the government by working at half wages on some socially useful project, such as longevity research, s.p.a.ce research, or just as a forest ranger in the growing number of national parks that were appearing since Industry was moved off the planet into Free s.p.a.ce. were regarded as improper economics requiring adjustment. The felon was compelled to pay in full the value of that which had been appropriated or destroyed. If unable to pay, the felon then had a literal "debt to society." The government paid the victim, and the felon repaid the government by working at half wages on some socially useful project, such as longevity research, s.p.a.ce research, or just as a forest ranger in the growing number of national parks that were appearing since Industry was moved off the planet into Free s.p.a.ce.

Crimes of violence were defined as the natural, inevitable, tragic, but intolerable resultant of some combination of genes, imprints, and conditioning. The biots who committed such acts were sent, without condemnation but irrevocably, to h.e.l.l. were defined as the natural, inevitable, tragic, but intolerable resultant of some combination of genes, imprints, and conditioning. The biots who committed such acts were sent, without condemnation but irrevocably, to h.e.l.l.

h.e.l.l had previously been the state of Mississippi. After the aborigines were resettled in an environment suitable for two-circuit (prehominid) primates, Mississippi became h.e.l.l by simply surrounding it with a laser s.h.i.+eld that made escape impossible. Everything within the s.h.i.+eld was intact. The violent biots were free to do what they wanted, and they soon had several forms of feudalism, war, piracy, commerce, slavery, and other early primate inst.i.tutions functioning in a manner that seemed normal to them.

Many violent biots and gene pools moved to h.e.l.l voluntarily, since it was the only remaining part of the world that fit their notions of proper primate society. Among those who migrated en ma.s.se and established sizable governments or robber bands in h.e.l.l were the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers, the American n.a.z.i Party, h.e.l.l's Angels, and most of the People's Ecology Party.

John Wayne, nearly one hundred years old, but looking and feeling around thirty due to FOREVER, and totally cured of all cancers by the Org pills, also went to h.e.l.l. He was rumored to be one of the richest slave traders and War Chiefs in the Western sector.

"h.e.l.l IS HEAVEN" was the proud slogan of the region.

WHITE LIGHT.

Hugh Crane celebrated his fourteenth birthday in 1938 by climbing into the bed of the family's black maid, Sophie Hage. She had observed his precocity and wasn't surprised at the timing; and the deed itself, she had learned, was par for the sons and the female servants of the best families on Park Avenue. What was not normal was the pa.s.sion that endured over several months, and the extent to which she herself was picked up and carried by it. Soon they were sharing secrets, just as if they were true lovers and equals, not master and servant.

"Nails and gla.s.s in your shoes?" she asked him on the day that n.a.z.i tanks crossed the border into Czechoslovakia.

"I read about it in a book about saints that I got from the library on Forty-second Street," he said.

"But that's crazy, mon." She was from Haiti.

"But it worked," he said. "I saw Jesus."

"You saw Jesus?" Jesus?"

"Well," he said bashfully. "That wasn't just from the nails in my shoes. It was after I whipped my back with wet rope for six hours."

Sophie gazed at him thoughtfully for a long time. "What you trying to do, boy?"

"I'm learning how to live without fear," he said simply. "You know my dad. He's afraid of everything and everybody. Jews, Catholics, bad omens, the government, a broken mirror ... you know. know. I just don't want to live my life that way." I just don't want to live my life that way."

Sophie thought about it for three days. Then she told him there was a man he ought to meet.

"What sort of man?" he asked.

"A high priest of Voudon." Voudon."

RED EYE.

Mister, what does it mean when a man crashes out?-IDA LUPINO IN High Sierra High Sierra, SCRIPT BY JOHN HUSTON.

DECEMBER 24, 1983:.

The Eye, diamond-bright and glowing with a red inflammation, floated in the air at the head of the couch as Joe Malik returned to the Euclidean flatland at the bottom of the gravity well.

Bloodshot eyes I've got to be haunted by, he thought bitterly, still dealing with the dimensions of the triangle. 3 3 3. No doubt about it. 333. The number of the Mighty Devil Choronzon, who had afflicted Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelley in the seventeenth century and raised h.e.l.l for Aleister Crowley earlier in this century. Choronzon, the Lurker at the Threshold, who drove back any occultist who tried to push open the final door, cross the boundary of the unmarked state. Choronzon, avatar of the Great Lie, spirit of Constriction, protector of the Illuminati.

Choronzon with a hangover, to judge by the redness of the eye.

"Jeez that was great oh honey ah you doll you lovely Arab sheikh you," Carol was bubbling happily.

But Blake Williams plows on: "The Freudian, of course, sees much more in Krazy's love for Ignatz. Sadomasochism, in fact. 'Li'l dollink, always fetful,' Krazy mutters contentedly as each brick bounces off her head. And worse: Krazy is female only in some sequences. In others this remarkable feline is indisputably male. Herriman, the psychoa.n.a.lyst would suggest, had some AC-DC hang-ups when he conceived this fantasy."

"Sometimes, Professor, you remind me of Burroughs," Natalie said.

"Well, I do admire much of his work, especially The Job The Job ..." Williams was pleased by the comparison. ..." Williams was pleased by the comparison.

"No, the other one, the guy who wrote Tarzan Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs."

"I? Remind you? Of Edgar Rice Burroughs?"

"Of something he said once. He said that he had a lot of fun with his imagination and that he knew in a small way what a grand time G.o.d had in creating the universe."

Joe Malik didn't even believe in Choronzon. The Skeptic within him had decided that the most operational model for those events which naive occultists attribute to "Choronzon" was to cla.s.sify them as synchronicities activated by the presence of the Trickster G.o.d archetype, in the Jungian collective unconscious, or Leary's neurogenetic archives, or somewhere back down there in the thalamus or brainstem. To a.s.sume, even for a minute, that Choronzon had an objective existence beyond the archetype in the unconscious circuitry of the central nervous system was to collapse into prescientific theology theology and and demonology. demonology.

But, alas, the Skeptic was only one program inside the Malik biocomputer, and not at his best at moments like this. The Shaman tape began running in its own programs as the Skeptic faded out, and Joe noticed again for the thousandth time how the ego circuit melded with the new program as easily as it had with the old, so now he "was" Joe Malik the Shaman, son of a thousand years of Sufis, and if Choronzon was really messing around he betta watcha his a.s.s.

"It's that motherf.u.c.kin' loa," loa," Carol said angrily. "We didn't do the exorcism right...." Carol said angrily. "We didn't do the exorcism right...."

"Choronzon" was a mind-construct of the primates specializing in the Enochian version of Cabalistic magick. Talking out of two sides of their mouths at once, as was typical of primate mystics, the Cabalists said that Choronzon was the astral embodiment of all the illusions and deception on Terra (especially all the egotism and malice). They added that Choronzon was also a part of the psyche of the student which had to be faced and conquered before Illumination was complete. When asked whether Choronzon was then outside or inside, they usually answered "Both." was a mind-construct of the primates specializing in the Enochian version of Cabalistic magick. Talking out of two sides of their mouths at once, as was typical of primate mystics, the Cabalists said that Choronzon was the astral embodiment of all the illusions and deception on Terra (especially all the egotism and malice). They added that Choronzon was also a part of the psyche of the student which had to be faced and conquered before Illumination was complete. When asked whether Choronzon was then outside or inside, they usually answered "Both."

This reply made no sense at all until G. Spencer Brown published his Laws of Form. Laws of Form.

A loa loa was a mind-construct of those primates who specialized in was a mind-construct of those primates who specialized in Santaria Santaria, also called Magicko de Chango Magicko de Chango or or Voudon. Voudon. A A loa loa, just like the Gentry, might on occasion be kindly disposed; but a guardian loa loa who was set on a woman to prevent her from copulating (except with the primate who had through who was set on a woman to prevent her from copulating (except with the primate who had through Santaria Santaria created/projected/contacted said created/projected/contacted said loa) loa) was well known to be extremely malign, devious, fiendish, impish, devilish, and a Royal pain in the a.s.s. The was well known to be extremely malign, devious, fiendish, impish, devilish, and a Royal pain in the a.s.s. The loas loas, like the Gentry and the various Cabalistic angels and demons, operated beneath the s.p.a.ce-time continuum in "dream time," where the true Free Masons create reality friezes.

An archetype archetype was a mind-construct of a primate named Carl Jung, who specialized in preneurological psychology. An archetype existed at the was a mind-construct of a primate named Carl Jung, who specialized in preneurological psychology. An archetype existed at the "psychoid" "psychoid" level, which was below that of individual or collective unconsciousness, where the organic and the inorganic meld and merge into psychoid matrices which, if nudged by the right archetype, would produce a reality-construct so astonis.h.i.+ng that it would appear like magick or a very strange "coincidence." Jung called these psychoid archetypal effects level, which was below that of individual or collective unconsciousness, where the organic and the inorganic meld and merge into psychoid matrices which, if nudged by the right archetype, would produce a reality-construct so astonis.h.i.+ng that it would appear like magick or a very strange "coincidence." Jung called these psychoid archetypal effects synchronicities. synchronicities.

And Marvin Gardens, c.o.ked to the nines, is reading on and on with absolute absorption: Syngamy forms a zygote, which develops into a new diploid form, and the cycle begins anew Cycles that's it, he thinks excitedly, we're all permutations and combinations of that first amoeba every e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n another birthdeath or node in the everybranching whatchamacallit. Oh man this is heavy and I'm really grooving with it cycles in time great wheels turning like the Mayan calendar the genetic clock like music but oh s.h.i.+t maybe it's just the c.o.ke I still haven't figured out if the d.a.m.n amoeba is immortal But Malik is maintaining his cool, albeit with some effort. "So all right," he said aloud, facing the Eye unblinking, "are you just trying to scare me to death, or do you have a message for me?" Treat all of Them in a lofty way, lest They have cause to think thee weak Treat all of Them in a lofty way, lest They have cause to think thee weak, said Dr. Dee.

"We better do the exorcism again," whispered Carol Christmas-nude, golden, and delicious-also maintaining her cool.

Carol had a great deal of experience at maintaining her cool. Her career had been typical of self-directed Unistat females who matured in the early 1970s: one rape at age fifteen while hitchhiking (she never hitchhiked again); two abortions; husband #1, who turned out to be so free of Macho and the Male Stereotype that even G.o.d's Lightning couldn't accuse him of Chauvinism (he wept most piteouasly when Carol got tired of supporting him and threw him out); husband #2, who was brilliant, kind, generous, sensitive, and a junky; a succession of mediocre lovers, with one or two she still treasured in memory but wouldn't want to live with again for all the tea in Acapulco; producers who believed that an actress as gorgeous as she should only be cast in roles that justified getting all her clothes off sometime during the third act and several times in their private offices; husband #3, who had put the G.o.dd.a.m.ned loa loa on her when they separated; and Ronnie on her when they separated; and Ronnie "Ronnie is doing very well for a special child," the doctor had told her the last time she visited the home. That was a h.e.l.l of an elaborate euphemism for Mongolian idiot, she thought angrily; but the doctor was trying to be kind, and she forgave him.