Hylozoic (19 page)

“You're not hearing me,” said Thuy slowly. “The Pekklet might kill Jayjay with an instant stroke if I make a run for it while she's watching. For now I have to play along. We're off to Virginia to tulpify more Peng.”

Nektar was shaking Ond by the shoulders, screaming at the top of her lungs. Ond cursed Thuy and broke the teep connection.

Thuy felt horrible now, and desperate for the presence of a friend. She didn't feel like dealing with Sonic, so she gave Kittie a call. A minute later Kittie was there in the flesh, solid and good-humored.

“I've been waiting to hear from you, girlfriend. What a hoot that you got those stupid birds to build themselves the house from
The Garden of Earthly Delights
. They're all drunk now, huh? Oh no, look at Jayjay. You need a hug, Thuy. I'll sleep here with you. We'll park Jayjay on the couch.”

“Okay,” said Thuy. “I could really use the company. But no sex.”

“Perish the thought,” said Kittie, undoing Thuy's pigtails and fluffing up her hair. “You're a married woman—who happens to be, ahem, a child molester.”

“Oh God, you saw me kissing Chu, too?”

“All the
Founders
fans saw you. I checked the ratings half an hour ago, and that kiss is huge with our female demographic. And they're wild about Chu's good-bye to you. ‘I'll love you forever.' So sweet. All the women are messaging that clip to each other.”

“My life is a mess,” said Thuy, bursting into tears. “I should have blocked my teep to keep that kiss off
Founders
. People are going to think I'm terrible. And Jayjay and I never even had a chance to make up.”

“Cuddle time,” said Kittie. The empty bed beckoned. The two women undressed and got under the covers. But—to the disappointment of
Founders
viewers everywhere—all they did was spoon together and fall asleep.

The next morning, Thuy woke to the sound of Jayjay humming and moaning. And suddenly the voices out in the clearing changed. The Peng had begun vocalizing like humans instead of squawking like birds.

Still on the couch, Jayjay relaxed again, and his goose bumps smoothed over. It was almost as if he were sleeping. But his diaper was soaked, and he wouldn't wake up. Trying not to focus on what she was doing, Thuy got to work changing him.

“Somehow I always imagined being married to a man would be like this,” said Kittie, waking. “Oh, don't frown at me. Hey, look, the alien birds have turned into businesspersons!”

Although physically the Peng were still big ostrichlike birds, they were now wearing black pinstriped suits—thanks
to Jayjay's latest runecast. Gretta had accessorized her outfit with gold earrings and a blue-on-blue polka-dot blouse. Suller and Kakar wore white shirts and red neckties. With his top pinfeathers slicked back, Suller looked like a gangster. And Kakar resembled a beaky grad student dressed for someone's wedding.

A pair of business-dressed humans arrived, bearing prominent teep-tags. They were a married couple, Chick Moon and Duckie Tarrington: “The top-earning team of real-estate professionals in the Bay area, specializing in spectacular statement homes.” Chick was a pale gangly guy, like a Wild West yokel in expensive clothes. Humorless little Duckie was a tightly wound brunette, wearing so much makeup that her face had a plastic sheen.

“What would it take to earn your business today?” said Gretta, her newly tweaked voice an unctuous contralto. She cocked her head and fixed Duckie with a glittering eye. “Am I saying that right?”

“Oh, you sound fine,” said Duckie, sizing up the regrown Bosch house—mighty odd in the morning sun. “But I'm not sure there's a good match. After all, you're alien invaders. If we were to partner with you, there'd be adverse legal exposure. What's more, you don't have title to any property, nor a bank account for paying fees.” Her tone was flat and matter-of-fact.

“How about this!” said Kakar, floating into the air to fetch a heavy gold shingle from the roof of Thuy and Jayjay's marble mansion.

“I'm shiny!” teeped the shingle's silp as Kakar tossed it to the ground.

“Fool's gold,” said Chick with a shake of his head. He gave the shingle a disparaging nudge with the tip of his tasseled black loafer. “I bet this tulpa stuff melts away if you take it off
the Peng ranch. Duckie here didn't want to talk to you at all, but I said let's visit for the shits and giggles. I was expecting more of a freak show, to tell the truth. How come you're wearing suits? Are we supposed to think you're like humans?”

“Far from it,” said Gretta huffily. “Compared to you, we're like gods.”

“Sure you are,” said Chick. “That's why there's a spot of white bird shit on the ground under your butt.”

“We have our eye on a group of humans who are in fact likely to worship us,” interrupted Suller before Gretta could escalate the argument. His voice was a dark tenor. “They're called the Crown of Creation.”

“You know about them?” said Chick, recognizing the religion's name. “The Crownies. Hah. They're already upset that rocks and plants can talk. I don't exactly see them cottoning to alien birds.”

“That's how much
you
know,” said Gretta. “The Crownies will be eager to help us. We have a plan. All you and Duckie will need to do is to speak for us now and then.”

“We're offering you two the opportunity to put sweat equity into the greatest land deal this planet's ever seen,” added Suller, his voice hoarse and persuasive. He had a hint of an East Coast accent. “You just need to contribute some time on the road and, yes, put up with a little mud-slinging. Don't shake your head, Duckie! We're going to own your world. Get in on the ground floor!”

“Can you specify exactly what you'd want us to do?” asked Chick, after a long pause. He and Duckie were privately teeping together.

“Thuy!” cackled Gretta. “Are you decent? We're bringing the Realtors to see your husband!”

Soon it was a done deal.

Before setting out, Thuy teeked a wheelchair for Jayjay and
concealed her stonker gun inside a flap under the seat. And then she, Kittie, Jayjay, Chick, and Duckie hopped to the parking lot of the Crown of Creation Worship Center in Killeville, Virginia, leaving Suller and his family behind.

 

 

It was a hot hazy Sunday morning; the lot was full. Odd as it seemed, many people down South still drove SUVs, albeit retrofitted ones with solar cells and electric motors.

“I could really score some car-art gigs here,” said Kittie, looking around. “Like, paint Good Ole Jesus gutting an eight-point buck. And paint the Rapture, with the Christians flying up and the sinners writhing in fire cracks. And, ah, the repentant Mary Magdalene in Mother Mary's tender arms.”

In the wheelchair, Jayjay's head abruptly snapped back and his mouth flew open in a moan—as if he were having a fit. Showers of goose bumps marched across his skin.

“Here we go again,” said Thuy with a sigh.

“What is it?” asked Chick the Realtor, alarmed.

“He's channeling Pekka,” said Thuy. “He's making Killeville into a Peng ranch.”

“Here,” suggested Duckie, offering Thuy a lace-trimmed hankie. “Hold Jayjay's tongue so he doesn't bite it.”

“Oh, he'll be fine,” said Thuy, increasingly disgusted by her husband. “The Pekklet won't let him hurt himself. Just act like it's not a big deal. I don't want everyone staring at us.”

Fat chance. Jayjay was moaning like a nut and pumping his hips. A pair of Crown of Creation parishioners approached: a rough-complexioned young woman with a ponytail, and a loose-eyed youth in a tan cotton suit.

“Hi!” said the woman, lacing her hands behind her back and pushing out her boobs. “We're Steve and Julie. Are you
here for the eleven
A.M
. program? Donnie III does a powerful healing near the end.”

“I bet he could do this fellow a world of good,” said her partner, Steve, hunkering down to peer under the wheelchair. He was checking for weapons. A security agent. He could have just teeped under there instead of bending over—and then he might actually have found the stonker gun—but the fundamentalist Christians didn't approve of using mankind's new mental powers.

“We're glad we're in time,” said Chick. “We came all this way to soak up a sermon.”

“Not from around here?” said the ponytailed Julie. The skin on her cheeks was raw from scrubbing. “Are you from—from West Virginia?”

“Farther than that,” said Kittie. “I'm a godless kiqqie artist from gay CA.”

“I don't think that's funny,” said Steven in the tan suit. Thuy noticed that he was clutching a zipped-up leather Bible. The Bible silp teeped Thuy that it was a pistol case.

Meanwhile, with a final ecstatic twitch of his pelvis, Jayjay had stopped moaning. The local gnarl had been successfully repurposed; Thuy could see a dullness to the clouds and a predictability in the motions of the trees.

“Oh!” cried Julie. “Look, Steve, look!”

Parading across the parking lot toward the hulking gray worship center were a hog-fat older man in clerical vestments, an old woman with a sprayed bubble hairdo, and a rangy younger man in vestments as well. Pekka had gotten Jayjay to mold the new Peng tulpas into the forms of the deceased first family of the Crown of Creation church. They were slightly larger than life size; their complexions were preternaturally clear and smooth.

“Dr. Macon!” exclaimed Duckie. “With his wife, Bonnie,
and their son Donnie Macon, Jr.” The Realtor had done her research. Everything was going according to plan. “I thought—I thought they'd all passed on to their reward,” she added disingenuously.

“A miracle,” breathed Julie.

“Maybe so,” said Steve, nervously toying with the zipper on his case.

Thuy and her party joined the crowd following the three disguised Peng into the worship center. It was a cavernous indoor arena, with Donnie Macon III standing upon a central dais before a robed choir. Donnie III was a lean, slit-eyed fellow, and he didn't look too happy to see his resurrected fore-bearers come swanning in.

Although Dr. Macon must have weighed well over three hundred pounds, he levitated, moving his body across the cavernous hall as nimbly as a character in a video game. As the tulpa of a full-fledged Peng, he'd been created with symbiotic flight lice in place. Fiercely grinning, he alighted upon the stage beside Donnie III. His wife, Bonnie, and his son Donnie Jr., flew to join him.

“We are blessed!” roared the Peng disguised as Dr. Macon. “We are blessed to revisit our home!” The beige-carpeted arena rocked with an avalanche of applause.

Thuy, Kittie, Chick, and Duckie were standing just inside the entrance, clustered around Jayjay in his wheelchair. Jayjay began humming again, enabling Dr. Macon to turn a Bible into a loaf of Wonder Bread, and a pitcher of water into grape-flavored sports drink. And then the fat tulpa sent a bouquet of plastic roses flying from his fingertips to alight upon Jayjay's lap.

“The Lord has called me from my rest to introduce the Sleeping Savior,” bayed Dr. Macon. “Bring him up here so the folks can see, Sister Thuy.”

Wearing a stiff, embarrassed grin, Thuy wheeled Jayjay up a ramp onto the stage. The all-white crowd was like a bag of bellowing marshmallows.

“The Savior has manifested Himself in the body of this ordinary, sinful man,” exclaimed Dr. Macon. “He's a kiqqie and a Gaia-addict, yes, but the Almighty is using him to bring on the End Times. Gabriel's horn will push through the raging sea, and we will know salvation. It is your duty to help the Sleeping Savior actualize the Good Book's prophecies.”

“Dr. Macon, Bonnie, and Donnie Jr. are alien invaders!” screamed the choirmaster just then. She was a charismatic woman with flowing red hair. “They're disguised Peng! The bird things we've been seeing in the news!”

“You'd do better to call us angels,” said Donnie Jr. He was leaner and more polished than his father. A huge cheer went up when he spoke. He'd been a popular pastor before his death in a drunken car crash several years before. He leveled a minatory finger at the protesting woman.

A moan arose from Jayjay, and the woman's clothes were wreathed in fire. She rolled on the ground, screaming and trying to staunch the flames. Jayjay moaned again and she was doused in a gush of water.

“Do you still doubt us, Sister Vivian?” said Dr. Macon's wife, Bonnie, stepping forward to help the disheveled, but unharmed, redhead to her feet.

“Praise Donnie,” croaked the choirmaster. “Praise the Sleeping Savior.”

“God made Man and Woman as the Crown of Creation—just as they are,” said old Bonnie, taking the microphone. Her huge hairdo made her face seem like a wizened patch of leather. “On a Peng ranch, this sacred order holds. On a Peng ranch, the sticks and stones aren't demonically possessed. On a Peng
ranch, folks don't jack up their brains and intellectualize over every little thing.” As she talked, her hands darted about like quick wrens.