Videodrome: Days of O'Blivion (11 page)

“No, Brian. Everything
has stopped. Peter is working with Consec Medical to get an
understanding of it. But it’s over. There is no more Veraceo and it
won’t ever be brought to market. It’s finished.”

----- X -----

It was a month before
Brian returned to Bianca’s mission. When she opened the door she
gasped and held a hand over her mouth in fright. He was half the
bodyweight of when she last saw him. He’d been bald on top for a
long time, but the hair at the sides had fallen away in patches
here and there. His moustache and eyebrows had gone and his skin
had become ashen and wrinkled.

He took his time
explaining it all to Bianca. Veraceo-One, then Veraceo-Two and the
Pittsburgh sadomasochism videos. The dinner with Consec, the
meeting with Consec Leader. He left nothing out; his chances of
survival weren’t that optimistic, he had a chance, but it was on
the wrong side of fifty-fifty which made him feel there wasn’t time
for secrets and subterfuge.

“I looked at the device
you left,” Bianca said. “You told me it could change the world, but
I had no idea of how literally you meant.”

“Bianca, I want you to
help me with something. A legacy project. I fear I don’t have long
left on this Earth. Very soon, all of this information,” he tapped
his temple. “All of these ideas and knowledge will be lost. I don’t
trust Consec. I don’t trust them to sit back and do nothing with
Veraceo and all the knowledge of it could vanish along with
me.”

“What do you want my
help with?”

“I want to make a video
confession; and I want you to hold on to it.”

----- X -----

Brian spent a week with
Bianca, visiting every day. He transferred ten million dollars to
her charitable foundation. Consec money would be spent feeding
Toronto’s homeless. He fell into the habit of recording
confessional videos. Philosophical videos. Thoughts on the nature
of television. Musings on television’s ability to reshape the very
topography of the human brain. Thoughts about violence… Many, many
thoughts about violence… Musings on pornography and its impact on
society. He had visions, too. Visions of the Pittsburgh women
dissolving away to cancer, their flesh eaten away and bubbling with
tumours. What had he done to those women? Many times he’d thought
of them. Many times he’d wished to go to them and apologise. Many
times he saw himself at the Consec black-tie dinner and imagined
himself walking away. Many times he wished Consec Leader had
watched Veraceo-Two and also had the tumour. That fantasy played on
an endless loop. The thought of hurting Consec Leader, physically
hurting him, was compelling.

He was watching
television news, CityPulse at Six was about to start. The show
featured street based reporting and had a mission to capture the
real life saga of Toronto life. Today it started with a horror. The
first words from the anchor-man were, “We open tonight with the
story of a terrifying knife attack in central Toronto. Two dead
from stab wounds, four more injured and the attacker shot dead by
police.”

The programme cut to an
outside reporter. “It was here, by the popular stores on Yonge
Street that today a tragedy unfolded as two people were stabbed to
death by a nineteen year old literature student.”

The report changed to a
black and white image of a young man and Brian almost jumped out of
his chair.

He knew him… It was the
kid… the electric shock kid.

“Bradley Etherington
was a bright young man with no previous trouble with authorities,”
the reporter continued. “Yet, friends tell us he suffered a sudden
and rapid psychological collapse and was exhibiting symptoms of
schizophrenia.”

Etherington… Bradley
Etherington… It was the boy he subjected to Viper-Sig. The same boy
who had thought his fingers had fallen off. The boy was dead, but
his face was on the television screen. A fleeting public television
life that transcended death.

With all of his cancer
treatment he’d forgotten about those Viper-Sig test subjects. There
was a girl, too. Suzanne… Suzanne, something or other. Good God.
The boy had lapsed into a psychotic episode only five weeks after
being exposed. Was it the Viper-Sig, or was it caused by something
else?

Brian got into the car
and drove to Special Optical Laboratories. They said they’d moved
everything to Pittsburgh, but was that just the equipment? Did they
have any notes, or paperwork still at the old lab?

A vision came as he
drove. A vision derived from the brain tumour, his new piece of
brain working hard to bring forth a new kind of truth.

In his vision, people
in an audience were gathered close to a television screen. He was
on the television and people were watching him. Seeing these people
so mesmerised somehow made television life more real than life in
the flesh. His TV persona spoke to the viewers. “In this electronic
age, we shall see ourselves translated more and more into the form
of information. We are moving towards a technological extension of
our consciousness.” The audience nodded in agreement, paying
attention. “We will see this in politicians who will be replaced by
imagery. A politician will be happy to abdicate in favour of his
image, as the image shall be more powerful than he ever could
be.”

The vision was a
revelation.

This is how his legacy
should be. He should be an image, not a real man, but a television
character. Bigger than a mortal man, more powerful, more
resonant.

He arrived at the
laboratory, unlocked the door and entered an empty shell of a
building. Whitewashed brick walls and a bare concrete floor. The
viewing booths had been ripped out. The only noticeable reminder of
what had been was the electrical conduit that channelled the power
and signal cables to where fifty television screens had been. Other
than that, it was all gone including the paperwork. There was no
way to find how to contact Suzanne, the other test subject. To find
her he needed the old paperwork; and to get that he needed to go to
Pittsburgh.

----- X -----

From the outside, the
Pittsburgh studio looked like it had been cleaned up. The badly
boarded windows had been bricked correctly. The back door had been
painted. On the roof, Brian could see satellite dishes he was sure
he’d not seen before. He tried his electronic card on the back door
and it opened. Inside, he found the lobby had been recently
decorated and the walls had been painted. He walked from the lobby
towards the main studio, becoming one with the darkness as he
passed under an illuminated red sign with the words ‘Quiet -
Filming In Progress’.

He heard some screaming
or crying out coming from ahead.

He made it to the
studio floor.

The sadomasochism set
was in use. A black man was being pushed back against the wall
which now looked like it was made from clay. He shrieked and
juddered every time one of the black, rubber clad Punishers touched
his skin against it. “Please. Stop. I didn’t do anything.” One of
the Punishers pressed him against the clay with a boot to the
chest, holding him against the wall as he shook and juddered. Was
it electrified? Was the wet clay giving an electric shock?

Brian noticed that the
two camera operators filming the action were both men, as was the
only other person in the studio. This third man called out, “Okay,
that’s probably enough. Bring him forward and hang him up, I want
you to try electrocuting his cock and balls. See what it looks
like.”

The Punishers nodded,
but the black man screamed out. “Why the fuck are you doing this?
Let me go. Please. Let me go. I won’t tell them nothin’ man, I
won’t press charges. Please. Jesus. Jesus. Stop. Fucking Stop!” The
Punishers dragged him along the floor and clipped a karabiner from
a winch cable to his wrist cuffs and began hoisting him high. As
his feet began to lift from the floor he started screaming again.
“Stop! Stop! Why are you doing this, man? I did nothing to you.”
Tears streamed from his eyes. One of the Punishers brought over
jump cables, ordinary vehicular jump cables. For effect he sparked
them together ahead of the prisoner sending a flash of electrical
sparks through the air.

Brian walked out of the
studio. He kept his head down. He made his footsteps light. He left
the room without being seen by the filmmakers.

The first floor had
changed. The corridor was now emblazoned with signs saying Consec
Security. Brian looked inside the first room to see a metal cage
had been assembled turning the office into a prison cell. He looked
to the next office and found another cage. In the third room he
found a cage with a woman in a light-blue hospital gown curled into
a foetal position, her back to him. She was a prisoner. Really a
prisoner.

This wasn’t acted…

This was real…

He backed away and went
for the staircase, up to the first floor and the editing bay. In
the first room he found the equipment had been upgraded. The
latest, broadcast quality under-scan monitors were built into
racks. Every screen had one of his Veraceo detectors attached ahead
of it. They had been refined, showing whether the TV signal
contained Veraceo-One, Veraceo-Two or was a clean signal. A piece
of equipment in a rack mount caught his attention. He’d never seen
it before but he recognised the instrument panel immediately. It
was a Veraceo-Two signal generator, no longer looking like hacked
electronics, now it was a custom built piece of broadcast
hardware.

Then he saw the most
damning offering this place had to offer. U-matic video cassettes.
The label on them said the title ‘Videodrome’ with an episode
number. There were twelve of them. When he picked up the cassette
he found a red ribbon hanging from the plastic hole that prevented
accidental erasure. On the ribbon was the legend, ‘Veraceo-2
ARMED’, followed by the ominous warning, ‘Optical Radiation – Risk
of Death – No Safe Limit’.

Videodrome… a cassette
labelled Videodrome that carried a red ribbon saying it was armed
with Veraceo-Two.

There was a noise at
the door. Somebody called his name. “Brian?” It was Peter Fluorite.
“Jesus, Brian you’ve lost weight. How are you feeling?”

“I’m getting
stronger... I came to find information on a test subject from
Toronto, a girl.” He held up one of the U-matic cassettes, “But I
found this.”

Fluorite leaned against
the doorframe and nodded. He grimaced slightly. “I was told you
were off the project. Barry Convex told me you were recovering from
chemotherapy.”

“That’s right, I am
recovering. I’m still with the project but I’m not fully in the
loop. What is this? What is Videodrome?”

“That’s what we’re
calling the show. The cassettes are thirty minute test programmes
for broadcast. We’re going to see what happens when Veraceo-Two is
broadcast in the wild.”

“You’re not serious.
You know it causes cancer, right? That’s why I’m battling a brain
tumour; it’s from exposure to this.”

Fluorite nodded. “I
know. The plan is for a small scale test on society outliers.
People at the bottom. We want to see how many…”

Brian lashed out. He
grabbed Fluorite as hard and fast as his weakened frame could
manage and pushed him back up against the wall. “...Are you fucking
insane? You’re going to fucking broadcast this?”

Fluorite held his hands
in surrender. “Si, Pátrone… You really are out of the loop. I think
I should call Barry.”

“What about the people
downstairs. I just found a woman in a cage.”

Fluorite looked aside,
sheepish. “The brain can tell the difference. It knows when we’re
faking.”

“So you’re really
torturing these people?” Brian dropped him and backed away. “Why?
Just answer that one question, Peter. Why are you doing this? Why
broadcast? Why go to such criminal lengths to manufacture a
programme that gives people cancer?”

Peter straightened his
clothing. “Like I said, it's a test. We need to know what it can
do. There is a problem in society, Brian. You know this. There is a
problem with the haves and have-nots. The workers and shirkers.
There are people at the bottom who do nothing but complain about
how the rich get richer. In their mind they see the rich as being
the problem never realising it is they themselves who are rotting
us away. They are the weak. They are the people who decry our way
of life and beckon communism to come in and take over their lives.
These people do nothing but try and destabilize a society that has
offered them opportunity after opportunity. They would dismantle
everything that productive people have built rather than lift a
finger to help themselves. These people have become an anchor on
society, they’re a drain on our resources. They need to either join
the world and catch up, or be cut loose.” Peter approached the
table of Videodrome cassettes. “But what if we could isolate them?
What if we knew their viewing habits? What if we could find the
scum television stations whose audience is nothing but the filth of
the Earth.” He motioned the cassettes with their red ribbons. “Look
at what we’ve created. A horrible TV show of violence and torture.
There’s no plot, there’s no story. Now who the hell would watch a
show like that except the worst people in society. Only scum would
watch a show like Videodrome. Wholesome people wouldn’t watch it.
Decent people wouldn’t watch it. God fearing Christians wouldn’t
watch it. Only the worst people in our society would tune in to a
show that flogged naked men until their skin tore and bled. Only
the worst people could watch a woman raped and call it
entertainment; and this is our chance to cut that diseased flesh
from our society once and for all.”

“And when did you come
up with this amazing philosophy? What was it that made you think it
a good idea to broadcast a TV show that causes brain cancer?”