Authors: Karen Haber
In those rare moments when I was undistracted by the needs of Better World I tried repeatedly to call Star. She had never returned my last call, and in growing alarm I had attempted to reach her by screen, by phone, and finally by registered letter, but without any luck. She seemed to have vanished completely and I was sick with worry over her.
So when the airmail letter arrived with a postmark from Rio de Janeiro, I tore it open eagerly. Inside there was a packet with a recorded vidnote.
I activated it but instead of Star’s familiar features a dark-haired man with a thick mustache appeared onscreen. “I am Dr. Juan Moreira,” he said. “Star Cecilia’s cousin.
“Amigo, I am terribly sorry to have to tell you this. But my cousin Star with whom you seem to have formed a close friendship was killed by the police during rioting.” His large brown eyes stared out at me sympathetically. “As you no doubt realize, there was much violence here after the death of your Desert Prophet. I have sent you the formal death notice, and a picture of my cousin. She was a fine woman. My deepest condolences.
Tem a bravo
.”
The screen went blank. With numb mind and hands I examined the other documents: the packet contained a formal certification of the death of one Star Cecilia Nicolau from a mortal blow sustained while resisting arrest. The date was several weeks after Rick died. Behind that was a holophoto of Star, smiling brightly.
Star dead? I felt as though the breath had frozen in my chest.
No. It was impossible. She was too vital, too beautiful to die. I crumpled the paper in my fist, trying to squeeze the facts into nothingness, into unbeing. Star, please don’t be dead. Please. It could not, must not be true. This paper is a lie. Everything is a lie. Only my love for you is real.
I could see her before me, laughing and dancing, naked, in the firelight, alive and fearless.
For a moment I fought to hold on to that vision. Then it faded, and the truth seared me, body and soul. Choking, weeping, I curled into a ball around the pain. Star was gone. I would never see her again. My love, I thought. I abandoned you. And now I’ve lost you forever.
All these deaths, all this destruction. No, I can’t bear it. No more, please. Please.
I ran from the room, from the building, blind with grief, out into the cold night and into the cond No mold city. I wandered through the ruins, lost and soulless.
Chimneys jutted in the gloom like headstones among the ashes and desolated buildings. Deep shadows cut across the streets and crumbling walls, giving the place an almost prehistoric cast. By day Better City hummed with activity, a lively hive filled with eager bees rebuilding their future. But after dark the ghosts came out to play.
I drifted, haunted and shaken, through a gray and hopeless endtime of the spirit, questioning all that I had believed in and valued. Rick was dead, and try as I might, I could deny his loss no longer. It had been a cruel amputation indeed and I was too much of a healer and doctor to deny the trauma I had experienced. The ruse of my busyness had worked for a time but Star’s death had forced me, finally, to confront myself.
Beloved, why have you gone? And why am I still here?
My thoughts trailed off into hopeless tears. I was alone, truly alone.
In the midst of my weeping, Alanna’s words came back to taunt me. Did I want Rick to be gone and forgotten? Was that what I truly desired? To bury everything that had ever meant anything at all to me?
Yes. Yes, I did. I wanted to run screaming from the past, to pretend that I had been born this very moment, fresh and innocent, without painful memories and poignant ties to other places and people. But at the same time I desperately wanted to preserve every memory, to anoint every scar inflicted by time. To remember Star with love and wonder. To honor Rick. He had been a magnificent anomaly. A miracle worker. A murderer. And my brother.
What, I wondered, do I owe you, Rick? What do I owe to you, to the past, and to the future? Should I tear down Better World or build it up bigger than before?
As I wandered, heartworn, weary, I found myself at the gates to the Roman arena. Slowly I climbed up the center aisle, step by step, until I was inches away from Rick’s tomb.
Rick, I’m scared.
All I could hear was the sound of the wind whistling through the stadium and my own blood pounding through my veins. But then I heard something else. It sounded like a rusty voice, whispering from beneath the cold marble.
Scared? Of what, little brother?
Making the wrong move.
That’s been your problem all your life, hasn’t it? You’ve clung to your rules and regulations so that you wouldn’t have to think for yourself.
And now I don’t know what to do.
Do what feels right.
I thought that I should close down Better World. That it was dangerous.
But how do you feel?
As though this place serves a purpose. Everywhere I go, I see people working busy and happy. Better World gives them hope. Someplace to be. Something to do.
And?
Well, isn’t that worthwhile? Doesn’t it provide something that nobody else can? Comfort. Connection. Better World makes good on that promise, which is more than any three organized religions can say. And there doesn’t have to be any incense, any priestly caste. All it seems to take is people.
Now you’re talking, little brotherlite doesn.
But, considering what a powerful force Better World can be, I don’t know if I can control it. Or if I should try.
Bullshit. There you go with your rules again. Shoulds don’t count, little brother. What’s important is comfort and connection, understanding and harmony. People don’t want that old-time nonmutant religious mumbo-jumbo. And they don’t want Mutant Council bullshit either. They need something new. A synthesis of the two. Bring them together, Julian. Bring them home. And heal yourself.
I waited a bit longer but the tomb was silent. Strangely comforted, I rested my cheek against the cold marble. All along the lavender curve of the horizon the stars were winking.
Perhaps I had imagined the entire conversation. Very likely I did. Perhaps it was a delusion born of guilt, or, possibly, love. And maybe, just maybe, I longed to find a safe answer and safer hiding place. What better camouflage than the enormous, obliterating shadow of my brother? And how better to honor Star’s sacrifice, and my love for her? Wasn’t this one way to hold on to at least a tiny piece of her?
Most probably it was a combination of all of these reasons that made me agree to Alanna’s wild plan. But I gave in, yes. In the end I said yes, all right, I’ll be a stand-in messiah. I had done it for Betty, hadn’t I? Why not for a few thousand more people?
Alanna received the news with a certain calm satisfaction, as if she had known all along I would come around.
“Good,” she said. “We can start planning a public ceremony right away.”
“Shouldn’t we try this on a small scale, first?”
“I don’t think so, Julian. So many people need reassurance and comfort. The more we can reach, the better. Maybe we should hold it in the Roman amphitheater.”
“No. Not there,” I said. “Anyplace but that.”
“All right, if you feel
that
strongly. But I think it would be the perfect place.”
“What if the faithful don’t accept me?” I said. “I can’t do miracles. I’m not Rick.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Alanna held up a silvery vid disc. “Here. Study this.”
“What is it?”
“
Rick’s Way
.”
“Rick’s what?”
“It’s a collection of quotes by Rick and an overview of his philosophy. I was working on it when he died.”
I was both offended and amazed. “You want me to memorize a script? Why don’t you just use a vid simulacrum? What do you even need me for?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Julian. I want you to say it in your own words, of course. But you might as well see what we were doing. And it might help you to feel more comfortable.”
“I don’t know, Alanna.”
“Will you at least look it over?” She held the memory disc out to me until, finally, begrudgingly, I took it.
I spent most of that night and a good portion of the early morning sitting by my roomscreen scanning the text. As far as I could tell,
Rick’s Way
was one part Eastern mysticism ann mon of td two parts golden rule seasoned with a sprinkling of mutant aphorisms, good old common sense, and some clumsy poetry. It didn’t sound like my brother. Not one word of it.
In the morning, bleary-eyed, I headed for the mechteria downstairs. Alanna was sitting by herself at a corner table, sipping from a mug and staring into a portascreen. Without any preamble I confronted her.
“Funny,” I said, “I don’t remember Rick as being that profound. Or articulate.”
She looked up and a ghost of a smile flickered across her lips for a moment. “He wasn’t,” she said. “But that’s how people will remember him.” I stared at her, nonplussed. She had indeed channeled her grief into a raging determination to control every aspect of Better World, right down to manipulating Rick’s image, his very words. It was the last vestige of him left to her, and apparently, it was all she thought about.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” I said. “Steamrolling all of your energy into this thing as though it were Rick’s child.”
“Rick’s child
and
mine. That’s exactly what Better World is.” She gave me a long, cold look. “I’m glad you see that, Julian. It’s important for you to understand.”
“But isn’t this taking advantage of innocent people who believed in Rick—nonmutants who are vulnerable to our sharing techniques?”
“How are we taking advantage of them? They love the groupmind. They need it. We’ll just be giving them more of what they want.”
“But, Alanna, most of the faithful at Better World are normals. I don’t think I can sustain sharings with them. How can I bring normals into a sharing?”
“You did it before.”
“Once, under extreme circumstances, and with the help of several other telepaths. Rick was so powerful that he didn’t need any help. Ever.”
“Of course you can do it. Rick once told me that even normals can become a part of the circuit even though they’re poor conductors. You’ve just got to pair them with stronger minds.”
“But that’s my point, exactly.”
“So in a groupmind you’ll need the power of several combined telepaths to help you create the circuit.” She shrugged. “Most mutants are good conductors even if they’re not primarily telepaths, and even some normals are tremendously resonant and resilient. I’m sure we’ll be able to manage with the people that we already have on hand.” I still had my doubts. But my own grief and determination to maintain some connection with my brother—and, by extension, with Star—pushed me onward. I told myself that if it didn’t work, no harm done. I could get out any time. I could still close down Better World.
w
e
held
my
first
official
sharing
on a Sunday
evening
in March, in the main auditorium at Better World.
As the hall filled I fidgeted backstage, uncomfortable in my ceremonial clothing. I would have preferred to wear a simple white stretch suit instead of the cowboy outfit Alanna had insisted upon, but she had been adamant.
“Jeans and a work shirt,” she had said. “For continuity.”
She even attempted to convince me to grow a beard but there I held firm against her.
The hall was filled to the brim with true believers: standing room only against the blue and purple paneled walls. Doubt welled up in my chest as I listened to the crowd chattering.
“We’re ready,” Alanna whispered. “Get started.”
Feeling like some foolish imposter I clomped my way out to the podium. The heavy brown cowboy boots I wore felt uncomfortable and foreign.
There were five hundred seats in the room and every one held a devotee of Better World. Each person sat there, sad, expectant, hopeful, uncertain. Occasionally in the sea of eyes I saw mutant gold glimmering. For one long moment I looked at them and they at me.
Well, I thought. Here goes. Take a deep breath and drop into mindspeech.
Let us form a circle and let us begin
.
Everyone linked hands.
Carefully I noted the location of the mutants in the room: two in the back by the main doors, two in the center, three in the front row. And Alanna, offstage.
Join with me. Don’t be afraid.
My heart pounded. I closed my eyes and reached out toward them with my mind.
A deep vibration moved up my spine and spread outward from one mutant to another and from them to the others until the entire room was linked. Yes, a circle.
I felt a surge of power, almost erotic in its intensity, move through the core of my being and out into the circuit. I knew all of them, I was with them, I could see into their souls, understand their private sorrows and triumphs. There was no separate being who was Julian or Alanna. We were all Julian, all Alanna, and each the other. It was a moment of supreme communion.
And with the communion came understanding. So many varying tones in this mix but all combined in harmony just the same. Suddenly I knew how badly these people needed this sharing, and saw, too, that they were not alone in their need. I, too, had been a prisoner in my lonely head, rotating in my obsessive grief and isolation. But here was sharing, here was love and relief from isolation. It was good, and better than good. Wonderful.
Together we heal one another. We help one another. Come, touch me, join with me. I’m frightened, too. I need you, too.
I felt a harsh negative surge penetrate the circle and somehow I knew it was Alanna. Instinctively I cut her off before she permeated the entire sharing. Whatever was bothering her, I would deal with it later. I had no time for it now.
The words of sharing came easily. I could almost imagine Rick prompting me. I could hear him, and suddenly I could see him.
He stood upon gray ice in the middle of a frozen pond, one hand above his head as though he had been waving to someone—me?—but had himself been turned to ice or stone in midgesture. Only his eyes were alive. Only the eyes. Golden and glowing, they flashed like miniature suns and left purple-black spots in their wake, purple and black and red on the inside of my eyelids. Their radiance nearly blinded me.
The stone statue blinked and his eyes broke the air between us into a million particles of refracteds onear color: purple, green, blue, red, orange, yellow, white. He blinked again, the ice cracked, and he went crashing through, disappearing below the frozen surface of the lake.
I dived in after him to save him and the water hit me like an electric shock. It was so cold, so pure and cold. And everything around me was white, the burning white of purity, of clarity, of white skirts whirling in a tropical ritual dance as drums pounded. I surrendered myself to the cold, to the burning whiteness, to the pounding of my blood in my ears, and floated there without volition. I didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need to think. The water evaporated and I hung in space, motionless. But I saw things. So many wondrous things.
A primitive rope bridge spanned a chasm between two cliffs. Rick stood frozen atop one rock face, I upon the other. As I watched, the causeway writhed and spread, fibers forming and re-forming, until it became the connection between us, between our very cells, the winding, twisting umbilicus of DNA that made us, made our parents, and their parents before them, snaking back over the centuries, back and back to the first mutants, the first golden-eyed offspring born after the landfall of those mythic meteors.
It looped around every mutant, stringing us together like mountain climbers as we clambered our way across the ages, up the wall of time. I had all this weight to pull behind me now, so many stone statues sliding up the cliff face catching on scars, on old memories, slowing my pace. I couldn’t carry them all, didn’t want or need to. I reached behind, slashed at the rope, felt it give, and turned my head to the wall as the past fell away, hurtling out of sight.
Now I raced up the sheer rock, certain of my footing, lighter than the blue sky below and above me. The path was easy, the way clear. Joyous, I stood atop the mountain and saw the millions of upturned faces below, flowers searching for the sun. For me.
And they said,
We need, and we shall always need. Always want, always search.
And I knew what to tell them.
Yes, we all need, and we shall always need, always want the comfort that seems so constantly elusive. But stay. Stay awhile here with me and let us comfort one another.
Good. We will share with you.
Then I saw them clearly, perhaps for the first time, in every shape, in every color, but identical inside. The same wordless yearning, the same hunger for love and understanding, was felt by the homeless man and the one whose bank account was stuffed with eurocredits, by the mechanic who fixed mechbrains and the engineer who designed them, by the poet and the garbage collector, the husband, the wife.
Need cut across all boundaries, all the jagged lines we had drawn between us. In our need we were equal and vulnerable. Human. Because of it we could love one another. And we did. I did.
For a lovely hour that felt like fleeting moments we all floated together and when I finally dissolved the sharing I knew that, somehow, I would carry on my brother’s work.
Go in love
, I told them.
Remember what you felt here.
I had done it. By God, I had really held a group sharing. I was ecstatic—practically floated offstage as the energies from the communion percolated through me. Everyone leaving the auditorium seemed to feel the same way. Everyone but Alanna.
She came storming out of the wings and cle wch.
“I want to talk to you.” There was something at work in her, something that would not be quelled by the mood, the sharing, or even by Rick’s memory. I felt my good spirits draining away.
She said, “That’s not the way Rick would have done it—”
I cut her off. “I don’t care, Alanna.”
“What?” She stared at me as though I were someone she had never seen before.
I met her fiery gaze and gave it right back. “Rick’s not here anymore, remember? Besides,
you
told me to do it any way I could.”
“I thought I told you to read
Rick’s Way.”
“I can recite chapter and verse for you, if you like. But I can’t run a sharing in any other manner than this.”
“Rick healed people,” Alanna said stubbornly. “He didn’t ask them to help him the way you did. He didn’t take as much from them as you did. And he never admitted to being frightened during a sharing. Never.”
“So what?” I said. “You saw those folks, their faces. They were satisfied. The sharing was good for them. What difference does it make how I achieved it? I don’t understand why you’re so upset about this.”
“Rick went right into them, saw the hurt, and fixed it.”
“Fine,” I said. “Then get some other mutant who can do that, Alanna. I don’t need this. I can go right back to Boston and pick up my practice there.” I was bluffing. At that moment I could not have given up the pleasures of the groupmind even at gunpoint. But I knew that Alanna had no one else. Silently I dared her to try and bulldoze me again.
We stared at each other and I began to fear that things were going to get out of hand. But Alanna turned suddenly, hair flying, and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
At first, over the months that followed, Alanna and I made every effort to deny that there was renewed tension between us—we tried to get along and pretend that nothing had happened. With Alanna and Betty, I became a member of the Board of Directors of Better World. We agreed that it would require a vote of two to one to oust a board member or to implement major policy decisions.
We divided up the duties at Better World between us. She and Betty would handle the public relations and routine administrative decisions. I would shoulder the continuous therapeutic casework of Better World’s clinic and hold to a rigorous schedule of public sharings.
The ecstasy I felt after each sharing helped to silence the doubts and reservations that pestered me when I was alone. Soon I was completely hooked on the groupmind, looking forward greedily to the next fix, and the next, and the next after that.
I suppose I could have just gone along indefinitely, burying my own losses, holding sharings, and developing healing techniques. But Better World still frightened people, and its many enemies had far more power than I had reckoned with.
In late spring I made a fast trip to Boston to close up my apartment. Alanna was waiting for me at the shuttleport when I returned.
I greeted her in surprise. “A reception committee?”
“Hardly,” she said. “But this won’t wait.” She handed me a portnde Alascreen. “You can watch this while I drive.”
It was a tape of a young woman with reddish hair and blue eyes, pretty in a sort of empty-headed way. She held an infant on her lap and she was talking rather earnestly to a sympathetic vid reporter.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “This is his child. Rick healed me and made me his own.”
The reporter leaned closer to the woman. “Are you saying that before he died, the Desert Prophet impregnated you during one of his mystical healing rites?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“And you’re certain?”
“Quite certain.” She smiled knowingly. “It would be hard to make a mistake about this sort of thing.”
The camera moved in closer on the sleeping infant. Suddenly he yawned, squirmed, and opened his eyes. They were bright gold, and as I watched, he gurgled and began to levitate away from his mother’s lap toward the camera. She grabbed him and set him down but he fussed and fretted until she started to nurse him.
“She’s been on all the major vid channels,” Alanna said. “Can you believe it? Claiming that Rick had seduced and impregnated her during a private healing!”
“Well, the child is undeniably mutant.”
“So she had an affair with somebody, got pregnant, and had a mutant child. That doesn’t make it Rick’s child. She’s just trying to rip us off.”
The report produced hysteria within Better World as well as in the general public: most of the faithful, desperate to have an heir of Rick’s body, wanted to anoint both the woman and her child immediately. I tried to convince everyone that the woman was a fraud and demanded blood and DNA tests. But the results were inconclusive and the mother immediately began a lawsuit on behalf of her child, Rick’s “true heir,” to wrest control of Better World—and its financial resources—from us.
Alanna was especially livid over the woman’s claims and instituted a countersuit, charging fraud, perjury, and harassment. Our lawyers counseled us to settle out of court but Alanna refused, demanding legal satisfaction. Eventually we won, but it took months and months of expense and aggravation.
Next, we received a notice from the IRS that Better World’s books would be audited. Although our records were up-to-date and beyond reproach, this added to the demands upon our staff and our spirit.
Out of nowhere, a documentary appeared: “Rick, Messiah or Mirage?” Apparently an unknown independent producer/director had somehow located over fifty “former” members of Better World who had suddenly come to their senses and were accusing the Desert Prophet of outright manipulation and exploitation.
Of course, the names of all involved had been changed to protect them, but I had Betty run a voice and image search through our datanet for these supposed former members. Only five of the hundred seemed to have had any connection with Better World, and two of them had been asked to leave by Rick when they refused to submit to healing procedures to cure their antisocial tendencies.
“Let’s have our people make a vid of this information,” I told Betty. “Distribute it to every major vidnews channel and to all on-line infonets.”