The Clown's Graveyard
Chapter Fifteen: The Mouse's Message

It was still dark when a garbage truck grunted and wheezed its way down Vermont Street. Gradually the room lightened. The sun reached the windows, bathing the house's exposed infrastructure in bright yellow light. The steel menagerie sent spikes of reflected light dancing across the walls and ceilings. Bare feet padded into the kitchen. Coffee beans rattled into the grinder, which whirred in turn. Another pair of feet joined the first and someone said good morning and opened the fridge. The smell of pancakes cooking mingled with the smell of the coffee. The number of voices reached five or six.

I lay motionless, afraid to stir lest I begin to think and remember, spooked by my own imagination as if I could no sooner envision the worst than it would come. It was a foolish notion. I shook my head and felt it rattle along some ancient fault line, my reason susceptible to rifts.

Angela had a large and comfortable bathroom and I made full use of her roommates' toiletries to restore my humanity. After shaving in the shower, I cleared a patch in the center of the mirror and stared at my veiny eyeballs. Looking around for a spool of dental floss, I noticed a wee mouse standing on the tile behind the sink. He had a tiny towel wrapped around his waist and he was lathering his face with a brush the size of a pushpin. He wiped clear his own little patch in the mirror and peeped a tiny sigh. I watched breathless while he went through his whole routine, first the razor, then a splash of after-shave and a squeal, and finally a drop of hair oil combed across the top of his head. When he had finished, he draped his towel on the toothbrush holder and walked along the sink to the faucet. He walked out to the end of the spigot and looked up at me.

I crouched closer. Clean-shaven, the mouse's features were oddly familiar. "Hey there, little fella," I said softly. "What's your name?"

He peeped something I didn't catch. His face seemed strained, contorted with emotion of some kind. He looked over his shoulder. I followed his eyes and saw another mouse, this one female, approaching him timidly.

"Is this the missus?" I asked, bemused.

When she drew near, the two sniffed noses, then set to chattering. Then without warning something flashed between them, and something caught me in the eye so that I had to step back and grope for my own human-sized towel. It came away specked with red. I looked down to see the she-mouse collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the basin, bleeding profusely from her chest, holding herself up with one arm and gesturing weakly at the mouse on the faucet. I quickly scooped her up and pressed a finger to her wound, but to no avail, the blood flowing freely. I looked for her mate but he was nowhere to be seen, and then she convulsed twice, peeped once with the last of her strength, went limp in my hand. Just then I spotted another one, another mouse, sniffing along the back of the sink. I quickly rinsed the blood from the sink, holding the little corpse behind my back, my heart racing with irrational fear. I looked quickly around the bathroom, found a spare roll of toilet paper and tucked the dead mouse inside, wrapped the tube with toilet paper until it was a perfect white sphere and tucked it far in the back of the linen closet. I ducked past the sink with my back to it, though the sound of the third mouse's frantic sniffing echoed unnaturally loudly from the tiles.

The kitchen presented a tableau in the tradition of Norman Rockwell, a cell of determined seditionists gathered around a blood-stained butcher block to scheme in the service of an alien race, the skeletal walls bathed in the morning's golden light, a Corn Flakes rooster cheering them on from the front of the box. Their banter clattered in my ears and my eye sockets ached. The real problem, I decided, was that I was drinking way too much these days, Lou's influence as usual. It's a wonder I hadn't seen any pink elephants yet. On an empty stomach no less—doesn't anyone else ever get hungry for dinner? I dug some sausages and eggs from the fridge and started them frying, acknowledging the greetings of the others with a nod. I found myself shy with hypocrisy, the hollow commander unworthy of his troops. Their zealous idealism shamed my willingness to lead them astray. It was like that poem about the valley of death—half a league, half a league, half a league onward and so forth. Except that we were traveling a lot faster than half a league at a time.

As chance would have it, the others were comparing the remarkable dreams they'd had. Jerry had dreamed of regarding the Earth from a great height, seeing clearly whatever he cast his eyes on—hidden chambers, clandestine meeting places, inner sanctums and all the rest of that The Shadow Knows business he so loved. Brenda had dreamed of running hors d'oeuvres for an immense gathering of tribes, piles of discarded toothpicks rising to the moon. Lou had dreamed a Xanadu of marks ripe for the picking. I listened while I ate, perched on the counter by the window.

"What did you dream about, Roy?" Brenda asked with a flirty smile.

"I didn't," he said, his voice different in a way I couldn't put my finger on. "I was studying all night. I've got to make myself a suitable ambassador, able to represent our Earthly history, culture, and science to the Fabulous Ontarians."

"What have you got through so far, Roy?" someone asked.

"Most of the physical sciences, a fair amount of theoretical physics, a chunk of history but not near enough—there's just so much of it. I was hoping to get through world literature after breakfast when I'm on the—" he broke off and blushed.

"Say no more, Roy," said Lou. "How about you?"

"Me?" I said. "Nothing in particular. Not a thing, really, I can't imagine a single one." I laughed nervously. "Remember, that is to say, I can't remember any. Boy, how about some of that coffee?" I felt myself blush for no reason and busied myself finishing my breakfast. I wrestled with the idea of asking Lou to step outside for a conversation but couldn't imagine what I could say. That I was ambivalent about the morality of wreaking our will across the general public? That the prospect of life without Integrated Consciousness was no longer as unqualifiedly preferable to the alternative? My hand shook badly as I took the mug Lou handed me.

"You oughta write them down—you remember them better that way," said Lou. Then he asked Angela about her dreams, and it seemed to me they shared a smile as he spoke.

"I dreamed about my regular life," she said. "There was no real plotline. I saw a ton of people while I was going about my business and we had conversations about all the usual stuff—real estate, work, the economy, home entertainment products. What made it interesting was the feeling I had. Everything was kind of sad, like seeing someone you don't love anymore, but at the same time I felt this current of anticipation that I didn't quite understand, but almost felt like I did. It was a tantalizing dream, good and unbearable at the same time, like being on the edge of an orgasm you can't quite get."

Lou coughed. "Well anyway, we should really get to work on the plan," he said. He was about to resume his place at the fridge door when Dr. Turezyn drew our attention to the kitchen's media center.

We crowded around the counter-sized screen and saw Digital Andy lounging on the deck at Sam's in Tiburon, the Red and White ferry and a few dozen sailboats bobbing in the background. He was wearing a tie with the Velvet Underground banana on it, one of my own. He was surrounded by a diverse cohort of interesting-looking, engaged, well accessorized friends, their identities as subtly modulated as the Village People. Digital Andy moved around the deck like he was working a party dispensing glib nostrums to each of the guests in turn.

"I don't know, Andy," said a young woman in baggy pants and a halter top, "sometimes the world just seems kind of, you know, weird or something. Like, there's this weird stuff going on that doesn't make sense. You know? What's the story with that?"

Digital Andy lay a hand on her sun-kissed shoulder. "You don't have to make sense of anything, Mari. That's what Integrated Consciousness is for. I know," here he turned to address the gathering at large, "how easy it can be to be distracted or confused. Heck," he smiled, "if the world made sense all the time, what would we need Integrated Consciousness for, am I right? The stress of modern life gets to all of us sometimes. We begin to think irrationally, act unpredictably, see 'crazy' things." He let the quotation rabbit ears linger a moment. "But it's really nothing to worry about. Your confusion is our business, and we've been hard at work on solutions. Integrated Consciousness 2.0 is the answer. Once you're on the grid, you'll never be left wondering again." Digital Andy gave Mari's shoulder a last squeeze as the extras murmured their approval.

Digital Andy knew exactly what he was doing. No surprises for Digital Andy. When had I ever been so confident, my head so squarely on my shoulders? Perhaps years ago at Cornsilk Academy, when my fame and popularity had fueled one another ever higher and I'd commanded the admiration of all. But I'd never attained that level at Integrated Consciousness, not even at my peak. I'd been haunted long before the dreams began.

"Nice job, movie star!" said Brenda as the Omnicast came to a close.

"Hmm? Oh, thanks," I said. The rest laughed for some reason.

Lou led a discussion of the day's agenda. He, Dr. Turezyn, and Joe Bananas would work on preparations for the Sam Romero show. Jerry and Roy would assess the logistics of the Friday evening manifestation. Brenda and Angela would work the rumor mills.

"What about you, Andy?"

"Me? Oh, I was thinking I should probably, you know, maybe swing by Integrated Consciousness. Because, you know, they're probably our biggest competitor for mind share. They won't be happy about the Fabulous Ontarians, not at all. So maybe I'd better keep tabs on the place in case I need to intervene over there or something." A tic jumped in my eye. "But I'd come right back," I said as it jumped again.

The limestone façade of IC Central loomed before me, oblivious to the wisps of fog worrying past, its brass doors impervious to doubt.

I steeled myself, then stepped out of the Cutlass and was nearly run over by a riderless bicycle, one of those old-timey numbers with the big front wheel and the little one behind, ten feet tall at least. I brushed myself off and was immediately clobbered by a pursuer in full flight, striped turtleneck and snap-brim cap, a flurry of gangly limbs.

The weekend-dim lobby was cool marble and soft echoes. Holliday glanced up at me from the security desk and smiled. "Afternoon, Mr. Hunter," he said crisply, glowing in the orderly light of the monitors.

"Holliday," I said. "What's the good word?"

"Incident-free," he said. "Or is that two words?"

"Hyphenated but I'll accept it," I said, and we both chuckled as I crossed to the elevator banks.

Not having my keycard, I couldn't have used the elevators if I'd wanted, so I was pleased to find the fire door unlocked. The walls of the stairwell were reinforced concrete. I lingered after the resonant click of the door and listened to silence as complete as if I'd been at the bottom of the ocean. I peered up between thirty pairs of criss-crossing handrails to the skylight far above, took a deep breath, and commenced the familiar rhythm of footsteps and handholds.

When I reached the ninth floor landing I used a credit card to spring the lock on the utility closet door. A small spot of light on the opposite wall indicated the peephole in the maple wainscoting of my office. The fisheye lens covered the entire room from the middle of a cast iron and glass wall sconce. In the old days I'd used the peephole to make sure my office was empty before I snuck back in through the panel. This time, I was glad to find the room occupied. I couldn't have said what I hoped to learn. The idea of a secret vulnerability or security hole seemed farfetched; the battle would be waged on the open ground, strength to strength, winner take all. Perhaps I just wanted to know how strong Integrated Consciousness really was.

It came as no surprise that Blanston had taken up residence. He'd always hungered for my office, as much for the status it conferred as for the breathtaking views and cherrywood paneling. He'd been painfully conscious that, in spite of his title, he took orders from me; at executive conferences and retreats he'd taken cruel ribbing from other CEOs whose chairmen were mere cynosures. Now firmly established behind the big desk, he sat with the ramrod posture of an eight-year-old in daddy's chair making conspicuous use of every gadget and accessory in arm's reach.

Most of the monitors were tuned to crude product tie-in cartoons and made-for-cable cooking shows. All were muted but the set at the top right, which showed an attractive woman in her late forties in front of a crowded city park. A subtitle identified her as Carrie Malraux, General Manager/Southeast, Integrated Consciousness. Even casually dressed, Carrie showed her impeccable sense of style. I wondered how she felt about filing her weekly report to Blanston instead of to me; I'd hired her personally and we'd always enjoyed a close working relationship. I smiled to recall a trip I'd taken to Atlanta the year before, when Carrie had put me in stitches with a drunken critique of Blanston's sycophancy. I wondered what Carrie knew of my situation now, and envied Digital Andy the regular contact he still enjoyed with her.

"As you can see behind me, Ed," Carrie said, "this weekend's unseasonably warm weather has brought Atlantans out of doors in record numbers. Whether it's a day at the ballpark, a family matinee, or just a good old-fashioned trip to the mall, these Southerners are determined to squeeze in one last weekend of summer fun."

"Can the chin music, Malraux," Ed said irritably. "How do the numbers look?"

Carrie's smile hardly wavered. "Pardon me Ed, I assumed you'd seen the numbers. I'm sure Andy will be happy to share them with you in detail, but over all they're outstanding. Whatever may be going on in other markets—I understand you've been having some difficulty out your way?—the Southeast region is fully on track and primed for the Release like a firecracker on the third of July." She flashed her perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth. Go Carrie, I thought as Blanston stabbed at the control panel.

The next report was from Brad Stevenson in our Salt Lake City office. Standing before a backdrop of blond heads like a wheat field swelling in the breeze, Brad painted a similarly sunny picture. Integrated Consciousness customers in the Rocky Mountain region were dialed into their prescribed lifestyles with pinpoint precision; they were happy, secure, and eager to take the next step with IC 2.0. As the reports continued, the map was filled in with well-being from Coney Island to the redwood forests. But there was one report Blanston had saved for last. He paused for a moment after the Northern Plains report had ended, sighed, then cued the Bay Area feed.

Frank Carter's face, pale and shiny, filled the screen. The subtitle identified him as Acting General Manager. Just like Blanston—he'd insisted on holding the title himself while things were going well, then passed it off to poor Carter as soon as things got rough. Carter had opted not to file his report on location, a wise choice given what was going on outside. Instead he was standing in front of a blank white wall pockmarked with crumbling thumbtack holes. His hands were crossed behind his back and he looked like he could use a cigarette. "Um, it doesn't look too good, Ed," he fumbled. "We didn't get much of a bump at all from the yacht club spot. Our counselors are having a hard time getting the message out. The market is confused—"

"The market is supposed to be confused, damn it! That's our top qualifier. We're in the answer business." After the love-fest of the earlier reports, I could see Blanston's blood pressure rising as if he had a gauge on the side of his reddening head.

"I know, I know," Carter hastened. "It's just that ... they're not coming to us for answers. It's as if they've ..."

"They've what?"

Carter shifted uneasily. He glanced off-camera, as if anyone could help him now. "It's all these rumors. Weird things are happening out there. People are really spooked, worked up, excited, all kinds of stuff. It's all so far out, it makes our stuff seem kind of ... kind of, you know, um, tame or something. Kind of boring."

Blanston was apoplectic. "Get in here!" he finally sputtered. The office door opened and Carter poked his head in meekly.

"Look," Blanston bellowed as Carter slunk to an armless wooden chair in the center of the floor, "I don't want to hear any more whining about any bananas, apples, oranges, or fuckin' pomegranates. No more mermaids, no more little green men, no more mummies. All I want to hear from you is that everything is back on track and under control."

He rose from his chair, picked up a basketball from the windowsill, and began dribbling hard. "It's going to take a pretty big push to pull this off, Carter, you know that," Blanston said in a controlled voice. "If we don't get enough heads, we don't get enough data, we underdeliver, and we're done. It's all or nothing. Maximum penetration right out of the gate." He turned and flicked Carter a quick two-handed pass. Carter jumped as if the basketball were a bomb with a burning fuse but he managed to control it without falling out of his chair. Blanston eyed him with contempt. "You don't get it, do you, Carter. You don't even know what we're doing here. Do you think we're doing it for the money? Is that what you think? Well you're damn right we are, and lots of it. But there's more to it than that. A lot more."

Carter was all attentiveness, holding the basketball awkwardly in his lap.

"No pioneer is ever motivated just by personal gain," Blanston said loftily. "A real visionary sees the big picture history-wise, and sees his place in it. You think the conquistadors were just after gold and pepper, or whatever the fuck it was? It was about claiming the new world for Christ and King. Rockefeller and Morgan and Ford made a lot of money but they made this country a hell of a lot more productive, too. They took us from a global backwater of piss-poor dirt farmers and small-town grocers to the industrial powerhouse we are today. A hundred years later America's got the whole damn globe humming like a turbine, turning rocks and trees into SUVs and flat-screen TVs so clear and sharp you could step right into them. Today's worker gets more done in a fifty-hour week than a whole town could have back in the thirties. We'll see factories on the Moon and mines in the asteroid belt in our lifetimes, and it's not going to happen by accident, not by just lying around daydreaming. We've got to keep our eye on the ball if we're going to achieve our potential. Got to keep that big wheel turning. Create new markets, build more efficient industries, keep on building our capacity for creating wealth and improving our standard of living. A satisfied American is a productive American. I'm going to leave this world a different place than I found it, Carter, and if you can't step up to the plate, you'd better get the fuck out of the way."

One of the monitors had switched to a local talk show while Blanston was speaking. The studio overlooked an entertainment complex in the heart of downtown with movie theaters, interactive museums, virtual reality arcades, gift shops, and electronics stores clustered around a postage stamp-sized green space. The regular hosts nowhere to be seen, the set was occupied by what appeared to be three or four different groups vying for control of the camera. A guy in Elizabethan garb shouted and gesticulated madly with a turkey leg only to be pushed aside by three teenagers in radiation suits who were in turn ousted by a quartet of old women with semiautomatic rifles. The plaza below was a roiling sea of placards, brightly colored balloons, and thick, multicolored smoke. Every few moments a cluster of balloons would rise above the crowd and drift off skyward with a small child clutching its strings, mouth wide in terror or delight.

On finishing his speech Blanston remained at the window, staring into the distance. It was a powerful vision. It would be a mistake to underestimate Integrated Consciousness. Under strong leadership, there was no reason to believe it couldn't withstand the Fabulous Ontarians' assault and strike back even harder, restore a redoubled normalcy. But under Blanston's leadership, I was less confident.

Something was bothering Carter. "Ed," he began, "I know it's none of my business but I was wondering ... it's just that I haven't seen Andy around the office much lately. Is he, you know, all right?" I was touched. Carter always had been a good egg, and I'd toyed before with the idea of taking him on as a protégé.

"All right?" Blanston laughed harshly. "Of course he's all right. He's better than ever. Just because he's too busy to spend time with low-level personnel doesn't mean he's not all right. Don't flatter yourself, Carter," he added. "When I fire your ass Andy won't even notice you're gone."

Carter slumped out of the office, tail between his legs. A moment later the door opened a few inches and Carter's hand reached in to place the basketball on the floor.

"Do you really need to be so hard on the kid?"

Blanston and I jumped in unison and I had to stifle a shout. It was my voice. It had come from the monitor on my desk. I didn't have to see the screen to know who it was.

"I'm sorry Andy, but you know how it is. Familiarity breeds contempt," Blanston said.

"Is that why I can't stand you?" Digital Andy replied with a chuckle. "Carter's all right. It's not his fault things are going haywire. And destroying his confidence isn't going to fix anything."

"So what is?" Blanston pleaded. "What are we going to do?" I had to laugh. He'd finally got his chance to run things himself, and here he was turning to a glorified cartoon character for guidance.

"The first thing is not to panic," said Digital Andy. "There's no denying this is a crisis of the first order. But I welcome the challenge. Rome wasn't built in a day, Ed. We're up against millennia of ignorance and fear—up against the whole of human history, if you think about it. All right, so we had a little slippage. It happens. People get spooked and rationality goes right out the window. That's why we'll never win just by working on a conscious level We've got to meet the enemy where it lives, in the dark, murky waters of the subconscious. It's all about the Release, Ed. Just stay focused on the Release." I envied Digital Andy his self-assurance, his leadership, his faith in the rightness of his course.

"That's what worries me," Blanston said. "I'm afraid with ... with you-know-who out there screwing around, the Release might end up falling short of its target."

"You-know-who being a clever euphemism for Andy Hunter 1.0, my organic doppelganger. It pains me to see him succumbing to the madness, when he was so close to finding peace—the peace I know. But he's suffered so much. Ghosts, monsters, mom—the guy's got a tough row to hoe."

"From what I hear, it's his mom that was the ho, running around like that," Blanston said. My cheeks burned in the stuffy passageway.

"Shut up, idiot," Digital Andy said. "Oh, to have a body and be spared the likes of you."

"I don't like him," said Blanston.

"He doesn't like you either. But he finds consolation in the provisional nature of your role."

Blanston's face twisted slowly as he discerned the meaning of Digital Andy's words. I smiled. Just like old times—before the clown dreams had thrown me off.

The recollection of the dreams surprised me. I realized I'd forgotten about them entirely, forgotten about the Fabulous Ontarians, forgotten why I was in the utility closet at all. The only thing in my mind was the experience of the office as it now was, vacated by the sulking Blanston, quiet in the afternoon light, the city far below.

Driving home, a new calmness clung to my clothes like air-conditioned air. I shuddered to think how rattled I'd been in the morning. It wouldn't do to get unhinged now. It would all be over at the end of the week. I would narrow my vision to that point drawing ever nearer when Integrated Consciousness and the Fabulous Ontarians would intersect and annihilate each other in a flash of light, and I would come out the other side with everything back to normal. If I could just maintain my composure for a few more days, everything would be fine.

Lou greeted me from the rooftop, Bud tall boy in hand. I parked the car in back and scaled the fire escape. He gestured to the lawn chair next to his. "How's it looking back there?"

"Pretty much the same," I said. "They've got their hands full but they're fundamentally strong."

"That'll change," said Lou. He laughed evilly and sipped his beer. He looked like he'd spent the afternoon felling trees. "Been working on the extravaganza. Or as I like to call it, The Stars and Beyond: An Evening with the Fabulous Ontarians. Not bad, right? Banana's in there making talent calls right now. You wouldn't believe the Rolodex that chimp's got—he could book a Super Bowl halftime show with the M's alone. IC won't stand a nun's chance in a whorehouse."

"A what, now?"

"The rest are out spreading the word. This is going to be big. Big, big, big."

I shivered. "Jeez, it's a lot of work just to shake a bad dream, huh?"

"You kill me," Lou said. "Bad dream. Boy, that dream was the luckiest break we ever got. You never know where the big one is going to come from, what's going to set it off, but you sure know once it's happening. There's no turning back now."

"Why would we want to turn back?" I said. "I mean, there's no way we could, right? Or is there?" I'd never considered the possibility. My mouth was dry.

"Why indeed? Son of a bitch. Remember when we were kids, and we always talked about what it would be like to hit the big time? As if it was just inevitable that our lives would go that way." Lou crushed his cigarette against the leg of his lawn chair and flicked the butt into the gutter. A ribbon of smoke floated into the air. "Stupid kids—you don't know whether to laugh or cry."

I smiled and try to say something nostalgic but drew a blank. Lou didn't seem to notice. "This makes up for lost time," he said. "This Fabulous Ontarians thing is only the beginning. Andy, you and me are really going to go places now." Now memories of Indy did begin to resurface, and they weren't the kind I'd been hoping for. I remembered a night of freezing rain and Jim Beam, the headlights flashing across ice-encased fir trees as we spun our way down US 37, Lou raving drunk about his brilliant scheme for robbing Fort Knox. I recalled the sour after-shave worn by the mobbed-up trucking bosses we worked for briefly one summer, and the stench of the body in the trunk. I felt the heat of a hayfield aflame, already licking our heels as we fled the scene of another lapse in luck and judgment. "So," Lou said, rubbing his hands briskly. "What next, do you think? What should we parlay this Ontarians deal into?"

"I think this is just plenty," I hastened to say.

"Yeah, I hear you," said Lou, nodding. "We've got plenty to keep us busy for a while yet. One thing at a time. Hell, why start planning ahead now? We've done pretty good so far just winging it. Man alive, what next?"

I started a second beer. The afternoon was clear, and the sun still caught the upper floors of Nob Hill and the Financial District. At this distance, the city's hills and spires appeared peaceful, belying the dark secrets lurking its streets and alleyways. It was a far cry from the quiet town of my childhood with its simple lives and straightforward deaths.

"You know," Lou said after a while, "it reminds me of a story."

My chest tightened. My beer had gone warm in my hand. "Hey, Lou?" I said. "Could I take a rain check on that?"

"A rain check?" he said. "Yeah, sure. No problem." He got to work lighting a cigarette. He struck his lighter a few times without success, turning this way and that to avoid the volatile winds. Finally he hunched his shoulders and ducked down into the front of his jacket.

"Hey, Lou?" I said.

"I'm right here," he said, still fumbling inside his windbreaker.

The sky overhead was still clear and pale blue but the fog pouring over and around Twin Peaks in the distance had filled the horizon a third of the way full. The upper fringe of the fog bank glowed furious yellow, though the sun was already submerged, a pale white disk amid the pulsating violet cloud.

"Never mind," I said.

Chapter Sixteen: The Great White Way