The Psychonaut Genesis Read online

  The Psychonaut

  Genesis

  Wayne Wightman

  The Psychonaut Genesis

  © 2020 Wayne Wightman

  Cuneiform Datastream

  Kamchatka Information Systems

  . . . .

  Previously released as Trashlife Nova.

  . . . .

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are all inventions of imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or living persons is coincidental.

  Wayne Wightman

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  The Psychonaut Genesis

  “If you’re a god, why do you look like a rat?”

  “Read between the lines.”

  ONE

  The meeting came to order the moment the General Director cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Graff,” he mumbled.

  The twelve men and women of United Tarassis turned their collective gaze across the vast mahogany table to their young guest, Lance Graff.

  “We’re told you have a proposal, Mr. Graff.”

  “Yes, sir.” One glance at all the staring eyes unnerved him enough that he fixed his gaze only on the General Director.

  The General Director was an obese man whose voice was at best a breathy wheeze. “Mr. Graff, will it raise gross entertainment profits by at least point-zero-five percent?”

  “Sir, I believe it will do that. I sincerely do.” His mouth was dry and clicked when he spoke.

  “You have forty-five seconds remaining, Mr. Graff. Proceed.”

  Lance Graff had memorized thirty solid seconds that described his idea. He had it condensed down to a dozen excellent verbs and some great adjectives. He had worked on this.

  The chairman listened, scanned the faces around the table, and said, “We’ll give it a try as long as it pays for itself.” He made the slightest gesture of his hand, and only in Lance Graff’s own mind did he still exist.

  . . . .

  TWO

  Smoke from a fire up the street swirled through the ruined house and out the broken windows. Two men lay sprawled in the rubble—one of them relaxed in a clear spot and rested his head on a random cushion, the other lay on his belly, on watch through an opening in the boarded window.

  “Scarn,” said the one on watch, “I think we have another one coming up the street.”

  The man walking in their direction wore a robe with a piece of rope for a belt, sandals, and the standard short beard and shoulder-length hair.

  Scarn rolled over and peered through a crack in the boards. “Looks just like Sunday school. Those idiots.”

  It was a common ruse: People dressed like that and were used as lures, to draw out the hopeful and then use them as target practice. It was also used by independents to get through the lines of the various factions, although that was extraordinarily dangerous.

  Tuttle, the one who had been on watch, pointed to a roof half a block away, at four teenagers wearing black headbands. “Bad news. Bet fifty he doesn’t get past the intersection.”

  “You don’t have fifty.” Scarn clicked off the safety of his Sepp 40.

  Out in the ruined street, the filthy-robed man trudged past an inoperative stop light, stepped around some scattered cement blocks, and came in their direction, now fifty meters away.

  “The boys are getting set up,” Tuttle whispered.

  Scarn did a quick aim and watched. . . watched. . . . He grunted in disgust and then fired a single round at the first one on the roof who leveled his rifle.

  The four instantly dropped out of sight. Whether Scarn had an ace was unknown.

  “You gave away our position,” Tuttle said.

  “Public service.”

  They both knew what came next: They rolled to their feet, Tuttle slinging his confetti gun over his shoulder, Scarn kicking open the jammed front door and yelling at the robed man, “Come on! Move it! Move it!”

  Along the street, gunners in the hollowed-out buildings opened up on suspected hide-outs and then on each other.

  “If he’s really who he looks like,” Tuttle yelled over the racket, “he doesn’t have anything to worry about. But I think I’d like for us to be on our way.”

  Scarn reached through the door when the man got near enough and grabbed him by the front of his robe, yanked him inside, spun him around, and slammed his back against the wall. “We probably just saved your life. You’ll be safe here for about two minutes. You’re welcome. Don’t follow us.” Already running out the back door after Tuttle, he caught up with him and they ran full speed down the alley, heading north. They always headed north.

  They had just crossed the first street when the concussion hit them. The building they left behind rose skyward as dust and rubble.

  Fifteen minutes later they jogged into a deserted neighborhood of half-ruined houses, found some shelter and caught their breath. “Another day, another dolor,” Scarn said.

  They picked through a crushed side room and found a decent area to rest. Long ago, it had been a teenager’s room. Pieces of posters hung on what was left of the walls—those famous images of the Milky Way galaxy from above—and around the rubble were half a dozen magazines about one aspect or another of interplanetary exploration by the United Tarassis probe station over the galactic hub.

  “Look at this,” Scarn said. “Some kid dreaming about going into space.”

  “He probably ended up eating garbage. Like us.”

  “I never was sure the space thing was real,” Scarn said. “Maybe it was just meant to be entertainment and convince us that we’re the brave and adventurous master species—even if most of us live with savages and crawl around in their refuse.”

  “I wonder if they kill each other in space over differences in theological speculation.”

  “There is no theological speculation. Those people do certainty. All of them, absolutely certain what’s black and white. They’re gray-blind.”

  “I just wouldn’t want to die for an idea. Like, in ten years, it’d be an idea no one would care about anyway and I’d still be dead.”

  “That probably makes you a nihilist. Or at least you’re unpatriotic.”

  “I can see dying for somebody, but not for an idea. I’ll bet there are a bunch of dead true-believers back there in those buildings.”

  “If they select themselves out, we shouldn’t get in their way.”

  They lay back and let everything rest. Overhead, through the open roof, farther than any sound would carry, they saw the angular dot of an aircraft headed north, leaving a long contrail behind it.

  “I wonder what it’s like up there. They could be in Seattle or Portland in a couple hours. It’ll take us a couple of months.”

  “If we live,” Scarn said. “I hate rich people.”

  Tuttle cocked his head and listened. Then he peeked out over the mess of sheet rock and two-by-fours.

  “You hallucinating again?” Scarn said.

  “It’s the same thing. Kind of like. . . .”

 
“Like ‘mouse voices,’ you said.”

  “You can’t hear it?”

  Scarn rolled over and got up next to him.

  Tuttle pointed to the destroyed home across the next-door vacant lot. “I think it’s over in that direction.”

  Scarn turned his head. After a moment he just barely nodded and whispered, “It does sound like mouse voices.”

  “Fourth day in a row.”

  “I guess we should check it out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But after four days, I guess we don’t have to rush right into it.”

  “Not unless you want to.”

  They relaxed and enjoyed another fifteen; midday like this, it was a luxury. Tuttle and Scarn, trashlife pals since they were kids, knew each others’ moves as well as they knew their own, although their motives, in most things, were different.

  After a bit, Scarn said, “Ready?”

  They raised their heads, scanned the area together, and separated. The only place in the vicinity where anyone could hide himself was in a still-standing living room and bedroom of the small house, thirty or so meters away. Scarn started toward one side, Tuttle the other—then Tuttle stopped and signaled: Listen.

  After a moment, Scarn nodded.

  Scarn signaled: Radio. Tuttle nodded.

  They moved closer, safeties off, converging on a single interior bedroom door. Behind it, they could clearly hear the tinny voice of a radio.

  Tuttle mouthed, Wow.

  A radio was as valuable as food. It could tell you what faction was moving where, where the places were that no one wanted to go, and the weather, all of which could save a person’s life.

  A little closer and they could hear a tiny but assured voice tell how Los Angeles had come under the general control of the Sons of Light, but in Huntington Beach, splinter factions of the Sons still fought it out. Non-combatants were advised to stay away from there.

  Tuttle nodded to Scarn once, twice, and they both stomped the door open, Tuttle dodging in first with the black end of the confetti gun before him.

  “No! No! I’m a believer! You can have my radio!” The skinny old man rolled sideways, covering his face with his hands as he did a fetal curl.

  First thing, Tuttle and Scarn scanned the room for hidden accomplices, trip wires, or weapons. . . and found it clear. Nonetheless, Scarn positioned himself in the corner of the room, ready to kill anything threatening.

  Tuttle squatted next to the man. “We don’t plan to kill you, but it could happen. Are you following us?”

  The man peered at him through his fingers. He was sun-browned, well-worn, and wrinkled, somewhere past sixty, with bristly white hair.

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?” Tuttle asked.

  “Wanna get outta here.” The old man sat up. “Who wouldn’t? Where you go, you clear the path.” He glanced back and forth between them. “What sect you belong to?”

  “We’re independents.”

  “Really? You’re not gonna convert me?”

  “Looks like you’ve already been converted,” Tuttle said. The man lacked two entire fingers on one hand and a few joints of several others.

  “Yeah. They made me one of the Armageddon Brigade. My name’s Loid. At least they didn’t use the drills. I couldna took the drills. Wire cutters on the fingers wasn’t a picnic either. But I was sincere in my conversion.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  The old man sat up, still checking if they were going to shoot him, and then visibly relaxed. He brushed the drywall dust out of his hair. “Where you goin’?”

  “We’re aiming for Portland. Oregon.”

  “Geez.” Loid looked back and forth between them. “That’s a long walk. But I can see why you wouldn’t want to be around here.”

  “We’re heading north to collect some money,” Tuttle said.

  “Money?” Loid was incredulous. “Nobody uses money anymore!”

  Scarn explained: “I’m the one who’s going to collect the money, and Tuttle needs to see a woman in Portland. He thinks she might be the one.”

  “Walking to Portland for a woman? Hm. I used to like women. Time passes.”

  “Iris Soquel,” Tuttle said. “I need to see her again to find out. . . for sure.”

  Scarn patiently looked at the ceiling.

  In the pause, Loid again looked back and forth at them. “Could I go with you guys? These people down here got pus for brains. If I can’t keep up with you or I get hurt, you just walk away, leave me behind. But if we find a car, I could get us up there tomorrow. Really. I used to drive a cab. I know wheels of all kinds.”

  Scarn held up his hand for silence. In a moment, from the front of part of the house, they heard something knock against something else, a small noise. There was a pause and then another small bump.

  Loid tip-toed into the closet and took himself out of sight.

  Tuttle and Scarn covered the door from two directions.

  A man in a dirty robe with dirty shoulder-length hair stepped in and smiled. His teeth were bad.

  “My brothers,” he said.

  “He followed us,” Tuttle said.

  Scarn slung the Sepp around to his back, went over to the man and roughly patted him down.

  “You would violate this body?”

  “Really? Am I the first? Shut up.”

  Loid looked out the closet. He frowned. “I never seen one of those guys close up before.”

  “Scarn saved his life a while ago so he followed us. If he’s the same one.”

  “This idden good,” Loid said. “Whoever he is, looking like that, always there’s guys following him where half of them want to shoot the other half. Anybody gets prisoners, somebody’s gonna get the drill. This guy we don’t wanna be near.”

  Scarn had posted himself beside the front window, but now he hurried back across the room, hooking a magazine disk into the Sepp. “You’re clarivoyant, Loid. They followed him. Here we go.”

  Loid dived back into the closet.

  “Oh boy.” Tuttle pulled three fat cartridges out of his pocket and snapped them into his confetti gun.

  Scarn turned to the man in the dirty robe. “They followed you. Here’s the deal: You’re going to turn around, go out the front door and you’re going to walk away from here like you don’t have a care in the world. You make any move I think is a signal that we’re here, I’ll blow you apart. Now, take off. Maybe they’ll follow you to your next prey.”

  “You would tell the Light of Man what to do?”

  “Not at all,” Scarn said and pulled out a nine-inch hook-blade. He deep-dimpled the man’s neck with its point. “It’s a decision you’re going to freely make on your own. Five, four, three—” He was counting fast.

  The man smiled pleasantly. “It shall be as you wish. My time has not yet come.” He turned and stepped over the debris to the front door and exited.

  “That was close,” Loid said. “Look how he just strolls out there. Wrong people in the mix, they could shoot the shit out of him.”

  “His problem.”

  Tuttle and Scarn carefully peeked past the edge of the bedroom door where they could see through front window frame. The man got to the street and had started across it. Three or four blapping noises rattled through the street and the man’s right arm flew sideways off his shoulder. Something blew through his abdomen and another took off most of one leg. As his remains dropped in a graceful twirl, his robe flapped and then settled over most of the pieces, though his exposed head lay with a one of his feet in front of his face.

  “Disguise didn’t work on that group,” Tuttle said.

  “He shoulda done a miracle.”

  “Moving time,” Scarn said.

  “I’m ready, if it’s okay with you guys,” Loid said. “I’ll follow. No trouble from me. Leave me behind any time.”

  They hurried down the remnant hallway, kicked the back door open, and faced a grinning teenager with a heavy black weapon pointing at them. “Howdy, heathens,
” he said. “Back up real slow.”

  “I’m a believer,” Loid said with his hands over his head, displaying the signs of his conversion.

  They backed up through the narrow hall until they re-entered the living room. In their brief absence, it had filled with five heavily armed men dressed in gray camouflaged rags with crossing leather straps over their chests.

  While the others stood in place, the man with the biggest rifle moved around the room with his fists on his hips. “Another cluster of heretics,” he said with a smile. “Slowly put your weapons over there.” He pointed to an empty place on the floor.

  Tuttle and Scarn complied.

  The kid from the back door raised his heavy weapon and aimed it back and forth across their faces.

  “We’re wandering souls,” Loid said. “We hunger for enlightenment in this. . . this sewer of a world. You can save us!”

  “That’s true. We already saved your imposter friend out front. Guys want to walk around looking like that, we do them the best favor we can.”

  “Lemme kill these,” whispered the kid. “I can do it right this time, Your Honor.”

  “We don’t ’kill,’” their leader said condescendingly. “We effect their deliverance into the hands of god.”

  “I can do that,” the kid said. “I can effect it right this time. I been practicing.”

  “Shut up.” He turned to Scarn, Tuttle, and Loid. “Let me introduce us. We are are The Children of the Son.”

  “Oh my god. . . .” Loid whimpered.

  “You may have heard of us. We are those who welcome deliverance. After all, it’s eternal joy that follows. That’s what everyone wants, isn’t it? So we sacrifice ourselves by staying behind in this filthy hole and handing out eternal joy.”

  “All the food! All the booze! All the babes! Just waitin’ for us!” The kid smacked his lips. “All we want, twenty-four seven, bathed in heavenly radiance!”

  “He’s crude, but he’s right. Without fear of death, we fear nothing. Show us the most fearsome shithole and we’ll go in and kill anything that moves, for we welcome deliverance.” He smiled and nodded at Scarn. “I can see by your expression that you are dismissive of this belief.”