planetary journey

 

 

 

 

 

In the end I told Miles enough to get him excited about Dataplex. Culminating in the fact that I'd been watching Cookie Starfishes all this time when I was at work. But he didn't look especially shocked. I prompted:

'Don't you remember? Don't you remember the night we got drunk and I told you I felt like a starfish? Remember? Ringworld Engineers in the bathtub, you said.'

It came out all jumbled, and Miles rubbed his eyebrows as he tried to follow my meaning. 'Oh . . . maybe . . . sort of . . . did you actually say 'Cookie Starfishes' at the time?'

'Yeah, I did. And then I saw the darn cereal in Shop Rite.'

He wagged his head from side to side, considering. I couldn't understand why he wasn't more shocked and horrified by the sinister implications of what Dataplex were doing. OK, maybe making these connections is the province of the paranoid schizophrenic – maybe I'm extra good at it. But to me there was a big unknown in terms of whether Dataplex was making me think and feel things, or whether my visions were truly there to be felt whether or not Dataplex existed. Whether the world on a TV screen was more real than me and Miles sitting in this car yakking about it.

But in that case, how could the Grid in some sense be inseparable from a cartoon about intelligent spacefaring snacks?

'Golems . . .' Miles murmured doubtfully.

I said: 'Come on. Do you really think I could make all this stuff up if I tried?'

'Well. Something's going on. Hard to say what it is.'

He didn't believe me. He didn't think I was lying; he just thought I was deluded.

But he hacked into Dataplex's personnel records and found that Leroy Jones had been paid as an outside contractor – just like I was – not long before I joined Dataplex. Miles also found his current address: a very swanky neighborhood in Alpine where people like Brooke Shields were rumored to live.

'Let's go out there tomorrow,' he said. 'What can it hurt?'

A confrontation? No, thanks.

'I don't know. I have to be at the dojo later, and . . . I don't know, Miles. What's the point?'

But here I was, Saturday morning after a weird bout of Friday-night TV with Klaski and the logic, sitting on Leroy Jones's couch in his Alpine mini-mansion, sipping iced tea and listening to Miles do a Barbara Walters on the great man.

'You know, I can't say where the ideas come from,' Leroy mused. 'Usually I'll be out running and an idea will just like float into my head. I'll get home, do a little sketch – like with the starfishes idea, the first thing I saw was Malkor, the wizard. At first he was a comical character. He had a magic cookie jar, and he used the cookies to cast spells.'

Miles glanced at me, but I didn't meet his eye.

'But then it kind of started to morph in my head, and the cookies became real characters, and they had their own stories.'

'Were you working for Dataplex then?' I said.

'If you could call it working! I went in and took a test. They play you some music and ask you to draw what you hear. At least, that's what I had to do, anyway – maybe the drawing part was because I'm an artist by profession. Then they gave me a whole stack of tapes, asked me to listen to them and bring in my sketches. So I did. I played them on my Walkman when I was out jogging. And then, one day, I got the starfishes idea. I worked on it for a while before I got up the nerve to show it to anybody. I took it to a friend of mine at Rodeo Comics, and he gave it to some TV chick he knew, and the next thing I know I get a TV contract. I quit the Dataplex project as soon as the real money started coming. I got too busy with the show.'

I wonder if that was when you died, I thought, looking for Grid parallels. And became a golem.

'What was on the tapes?' I tried to sound casually curious.

'Oh, music. Rock, pop, R&B, world music. A whole mix. Some stuff I've heard, but most of it was new to me. Some of it has come on the radio since then. One of the songs was actually 'Planetary Journey', believe it or not. You know, the Cookie Starfishes theme song. It hadn't even been released yet, but the producers picked it for the show and as soon as I heard it I recognized it from the Dataplex tapes. Neat coincidence. Good tune, too.'

'Did you know that Dataplex are still involved in the show?' Miles said.

Leroy waved his hand. 'Yeah, I hear they consult on the advertising or something. Everybody seems to think they know the secret of a show's success and they can tell advertisers which space to buy to get the best results. That's about the extent of it.'

'So you don't think your idea had anything to do with Dataplex?'

Leroy frowned. He was a light-skinned black man, with a sprinkling of freckles and a mustache, and until Miles said that his expression had been sunny and open.

'No. No, I don't. Not unless you want to give them credit for letting me take time off from my other jobs, giving me some headspace, which I badly needed at the time.'

'Of course, of course,' Miles said hastily 'Well, thanks a lot for your time. Sorry to drop in like this. Come on, Karen.'

I didn't move.

'Mr. Jones. How did you hear about the Dataplex gig?' I asked.

Leroy chuckled. 'You're probably not going to believe this, but it was one of those ads – you know: Earn up to $500 a week in your spare time, no selling, type of thing. At the time I was pretty hard up. Keisha's mom left her with me, I had to put her in day care and work two jobs just to keep food on the table and pay the car loan. Actually, if I remember correctly, somebody put a flier on my windshield. I came out of my counselor's office and there it was. See, it was tough times. I was on antidepressants and all that crap, I had to see a shrink but I couldn't afford him. I saw the ad and I thought, 'What the hell?"

I looked around the villa. It had been tastefully decorated. Everything was in the kind of understatement that you can only buy in SoHo, except for a giant framed poster advertising Cookie Starfishes.

Leroy sure wasn't depressed now.

Then something flashed in my head.

'Do you remember your counselor's name?'

He cocked his head. 'Yeah. Dr. Stengel. Good guy. Very sympathetic'

Keisha's Shetland pony could be seen grazing outside. How many Dr. Stengels could there be in northern New Jersey?

'Gunther Stengel?' I asked.

'I think so . . . yeah. Some kind of German name, or Swedish or something. You know him?'

Everything was clicking now. I could just see Gunther sending his secretary out to put fliers on people's cars while he had them on his couch talking about their childhoods. It was one way to recruit nutcases.

Leroy Jones was watching me curiously. Shaken, I babbled a breathless response. 'No . . . not exactly. . . well, it all turned out OK for you. That's quite a story'

'Yeah.' Leroy Jones grinned and sat back, relaxing. 'It turned out great. We're going into syndication and I'm looking at cable deals, maybe a movie. Who says art doesn't pay?'

'Too bad they had to kill you first,' I murmured without thinking. When I saw his face, I leaped to my feet, horrified. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.'

Miles grabbed my arm. 'Cookie doesn't know what she's saying sometimes,' he said. 'Please excuse us.'

Now Leroy was seriously annoyed. He followed us to the door.

'What's all this about?' he shouted after us as we ran down the front lawn. 'Do you guys really work for Rolling Stone? Hey! I thought you said your name was Karen!'

 

'It's a conspiracy!' cried Miles, hitting the steering wheel. 'An attempt to dominate the commercial market. Mind control. Shit.'

'Mind control?' I said. 'Where do you get that?'

'Dataplex planted the idea for Cookie Starfishes in Leroy Jones, using music. I wonder where those original tapes are now?'

'Don't be ridiculous, Miles.'

He took his gaze off the road and stared at me. Usually he's the one saying that to me.

'Well, how do you explain the connection?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'But I refuse to believe that Gunther is capable of performing mind control. He can't even get his dogs to listen to him. He's a good salesman but he's no Franz Mesmer.'

'Who?'

'The first hypnotist. The word 'mesmerize' comes from his name, didn't you know that? My mother, she was into all that stuff.'

'I should have known.'

'See, why would Dataplex plant an idea for a hit TV show in the mind of an unknown cartoonist? If they knew they had a hit show, they would have run with it themselves. And besides, if they already had the idea, it had to come from somewhere. The original creator would be bound to object and probably try to sue them. It's not plausible. It's not even plausible to imagine that, with a plot like you've described to me, Cookie Starfishes could be a hit show. I mean, who would predict that? It sounds totally stupid in theory.'

'It's totally stupid in reality, too,' Miles said. 'I watched it the other day, just out of curiosity. But I could look into the lawsuit angle. You never know.'

'No, Miles, you were right the first time. Dataplex are looking to predict what will be successful. They're running experiments to try to find a method of knowing in advance what horse to bet on. That's what my debriefings have been about. That's what they're using me for.'

'And what about Cookie Starfishes?'

'I think Leroy's like me. He connected with the Grid, too. Maybe it was through that song that was on the tape that I saw and he heard. The song that also turned out to be a surprise hit. It was a hit because it connects to something bigger, and that's why it inspired Leroy. See, Dataplex are trying to tap something. They are tapping something. But they don't know what it is. The connection between me and Leroy isn't Dataplex. It's the Grid.'

'The who?'

I tried to explain. I told him about the Grid, which led me into Machine Front and their Third Wave of MFeels. He knew vaguely about the golems from things I'd let drop before, but I told him about Serge's daughters and how they were one person spread over several bodies. I told him about the scent language of the Grid.

But it didn't go down very well. I had never acually confided in anyone what went on when I flew. It was top-secret information: I was only supposed to talk about it to Gunther when he debriefed me. And I had always believed Gunther understood and respected what I was saying. Telling Miles about the Grid felt like taking my clothes off in public.

'A luminous web? You mean like in Tron?' Miles said, perplexed.

I sighed.

'I wish I had your brains, Miles. Or I wish you had my imagination. Because the way things are, I don't know how we're going to put this together.'

'I don't wish I had your imagination,' Miles said darkly. 'Cookie, this Grid, whatever it is, isn't real. You know that, right?'

Is the stock market real? Is Winnie the Pooh real?'

'Yes, and no, respectively You shouldn't have to ask me these kinds of questions, Cookie.'

 

Miles wanted to hang out and argue some more, but I had to be at the dojo. Today was the last practice session before tomorrow's tournament and my first demonstration, and it was also going to be Miss Cooper's test for nidan. She wasn't the only one taking a test; half the dojo was up for promotion, but most of us would be tested in a large group. Miss Cooper would perform solo, and she would have to spar with all the other black belts in the dojo – including some of the Okinawans.

When I entered the dressing room she and Gloria were both there. Miss Cooper was tying her dishevelled blonde hair back into a fresh ponytail.

'God, it's hot,' she said. 'I could drink a lake.'

'How's it going?'

'Oh, man, it's awesome. I've never been so tired in my whole life, but also, like, so inspired? Sensei Masunobu is the best. Look at my arms.'

She showed me her forearms. They were covered with black and blue contusions.

'Knocking-hands drill,' she said. 'It's a Chinese practice. Cool, huh?'

'What happened to your knuckles?' I said. They were completely skinned, bloody – a wreck.

'Makiwara. They do a lot more makiwara than we do.'

Gloria tut-tutted. 'You better be careful, hon. You can get calcium deposits from that, it's not good for your joints. Plus you could get an infection in there.'

'Pfff!' said Miss Cooper. 'This is real training. I've learned more in the past week than I learned in the past two years.'

Gloria sniffed. 'Yeah, well, just look at the Okinawans and then look at our great master.' Her voice dripped with sarcasm. 'Did you see him doing Sanchin this morning? He was wilting. He kept sneaking off to drink Sprite in his office. Did you see his belly? That man looks like a giant adenoid.'

'Shh!' Miss Cooper started to reprimand us, but Gloria and I were giggling so much that she let up with her posing. 'Actually, you have a point. I wish I could go train in Okinawa. They really teach you. Masunobu showed me a whole bunch of applications for Sanseiru – we never learned those.'

'I saw,’ said Gloria tartly. 'They mostly seemed to involve dumping you on your ass and laughing.'

'They do laugh a lot,' Miss Cooper said.

'Yeah, they laugh at us,' countered Gloria. 'See what you missed, Cookie? Where you been, anyway?'

'I. . . uh. . . I didn't know there was anything going on this morning. I thought it was afternoon and evening, today.'

'Shihan mentioned it last night. I thought you knew.'

'Am I in trouble?'

'I doubt he even noticed you weren't here. He's too busy worrying about being demoted. Apparently the Okinawans don't like it that he's a seventh dan. He might have to take a test, too. I hope he does. He probably couldn't pass a black-belt test. He's an embarrassment.'

I had never heard this kind of talk before, and I didn't know what to make of it. What about all the secret techniques? What about all Shihan Norman's experience and knowledge and wisdom? I found myself wanting to defend him.

'I'm not sure about these Okinawans,' I said. 'They keep talking about propagating the system and spreading the word – they make it sound like a religion.'

'Maybe to them it is,' said Miss Cooper. 'Karate is very big on Okinawa. Shihan Hideki is a highly respected community leader.'

'Yeah, but he can party,' Gloria snorted. 'Did you see him last night?'

Apparently, after I'd left some of the Okinawans had come to Tony's looking for entertainment and Gloria and Miss Cooper had taken them out to a club. Miss Cooper cracked up, telling me.

'Master Hideki was wearing this sharkskin suit, and he got out on the dance floor and started boogying like John Travolta.'

'I saw you and Masunobu slow-dancing,' teased Gloria, elbowing Miss Cooper. 'You know he has a wife, right?'

'Of course I do! He's, like, at least forty. He showed me pictures of his kids. He's really sweet.'

'When he's not dumping you on the floor and giggling at your bruises.'

'They open doors for you,' defended Miss Cooper. 'They don't let you sit down without pulling out your chair. And they're high-level masters. It's really strange.'

Gloria said, 'I wonder how high-level Masunobu was when he had his face in your tits last night on the dance floor!'

We all cracked up.

'Come on, he's not that short!' Miss Cooper protested.

One of the Okinawans barked something in Japanese from the training floor and we all dashed out, bowed, and scurried into position on the floor. We were about to be put through our paces again.

 

What stands out in my mind about that day was the way Miss Cooper performed her naginata kata during the test. In the sparring, she was more or less humiliated by the Okinawans. Whenever she tried to punch one of them, the guy would just ignore the punch, pick her up and toss her, then laugh. There wasn't much that she could do. She only weighs about 115 pounds, tops. She'd bow, stand up, be allowed to try again. I knew she could kick Masunobu in the head if she felt like it – she had a lightning-fast roundhouse – and at least score some kind of point, but she wasn't allowed to. The Okinawans frown on kicks higher than knee level as being too unrealistic and risky, and they don't allow them in sparring. She wasn't helped by the fact that the dojo floor was swimming in sweat and she kept slipping. Her opponents never seemed to slip because they never seemed to move. They just stood rooted to the spot and waited for her to try something. Every time she had to block one of their punches I could see the pain she was in from her ruined forearms. She had to fight one black belt after the other without a break, and by the end of it she could hardly get herself off the floor.

Still, after she was excused to change into her naginata costume, she returned looking really excellent with a white headband tied across her forehead and those wide-legged black pants on her legs, carrying the ancient weapon. Her kata was amazing, the best I'd ever seen her do, and Masunobu Hideki nodded his approval at the end. All of us broke out cheering, only to be shushed censoriously by Shihan Norman, who looked angry about something. Immediately after the session he disappeared into his office. The Okinawans ignored him. They seemed to think he was some kind of joke – which, frankly, he was.

Afterward a whole pile of us, Americans and Okinawans together, stormed Pizza Hut and pretty much destroyed every scrap of food they had. I use the term 'we' loosely. I ate some fruit I'd brought with me, and I nibbled some of Gloria's garlic bread. I couldn't face anything more substantial.

'I'm really proud of you,' said Gloria. 'You've stuck with the pact.'

'Yeah, too bad I can't afford a new car now,' I said glumly. I looked at the pizza, wishing I could remember how much I used to like it because now I'd just as soon have eaten a rat.

'Things will pick up,' Gloria said. 'Gunther's going to come to his senses any day now. He's not exactly batting a thousand without you.'

I didn't pursue it. I was afraid I'd start crying and tell Gloria everything. Maybe she even knew. She probably did. They all thought I was a cuckoo bird.

After Pizza Hut we went to the Hilton Hotel where the Okinawans were staying and drank in the hotel bar. It was noisy and crowded, but the air-conditioning was powerful and it was nice to sit in the cool darkness and pretend I didn't have to go back to the Grid.

Troy and Gloria left together; Troy was tanked and Gloria was going to drive him home. 'You got to come in and tell Diane it was your fault,' he slurred at Gloria.

'Yeah, sure, I pried your mouth open and poured eight beers down it, tough guy.'

Miss Cooper waded across from the bar to me. She had a drink in her hand and a huge smile on her face. Just looking at her bloody, skinned knuckles made me wince.

'Are you coming up to Masunobu's room? It's getting too crowded here and the prices are ridiculous.'

I pretended to yawn.

'I'm really whacked. I want to be on form for tomorrow, so I'm gonna go. Don't drink too much, OK? We're going pocketbook-and-broom, not the Fifty-two Steps of the Drunken Monk.'

'I'm not drinking at all,' Miss Cooper said. 'This is tonic water. Don't you want to come up for a little while? It's only ten o'clock.'

I looked at the scene. Most of our group had left. Masunobu Hideki and about five or six black belts, most of them from other dojos around the country, were getting ready to repair to Masunobu's room with a boom box and a case of beer. Masunobu was snapping his fingers to Van Halen and the Americans were laughing and playing air guitar. I felt no urge to stay. How much time can you stand to spend with a bunch of drunk white guys who think Eddie Van Halen is a musical god but Prince is just some weirdo in eyeliner?

'I'll see you tomorrow,' I said.

'Are you sure? It'll be fun – come on, Cookie!'

Miss Cooper's eyes sparkled. She was excited, in her element. I hated to let her down.

'You did great today,' I said. 'Congratulations on your test.'

She laughed nervously. 'I don't know if I passed yet.'

'You deserve the promotion. Everybody's really proud of you. Now go have fun. I got to drag my big old butt home and get into a lukewarm bath.'

I went out into stifling heat, a barrage of cricket music and the smell of car exhaust off Route 23. Every muscle in my body was heavy and dragging, but my head was strangely alive.

I knew I wouldn't get into a lukewarm bath. I might not even sleep.