Videodrome: Days of O'Blivion (12 page)

“It’s not a what,
Pátrone… It’s who… It was Barry Convex. He’s the one who convinced
me… Videodrome, is a force for good; and along with Consec, we’re
going to change the world together.”

----- X -----

Brian flew back to
Toronto feeling the life slowly draining out of him. He wanted to
crawl away and die. His resonance replaced with a cold, despairing
misery. What a fool he’d been. To give himself cancer, to expose
others and shorten their lives. Those people were victims of his
mistake, but this new application was not a mistake. It was
designed. His technology was in the hands of people whose very
ideology regarded the poor, downtrodden and unproductive as the
enemy. His folly was irredeemable.

But it spurred in him
something else. Rage. A quiet brewing anger looking for an outlet.
He wanted to set fire to the Consec building and watch it engulfed
in flames. He wanted to force Consec Leader to watch all twelve of
those Videodrome programmes. He wanted to make the man choke on his
own filth until the cancer was bubbling out of his ears.

That feeling again.
That desire for violence.

On arrival in Toronto
he went to a payphone. He was so demoralised his arms barely had
the strength to lift the receiver. “Hello,” he croaked. “I’d like
to speak with Suzanne Webster.”

There was a girl on the
other end of the line and the sound of more young women in the
background. Suzanne’s address was on a university campus. Brian
reasoned it was likely a student house. “Who is calling
please?”

“My name is Brian
Spectrometer.”

“And how did you know
Suzanne?”

Brian felt the last
ounce of warmth leave his body. How did you know her? Past tense…
Oh Jesus… “I was… We…” Brian fumbled for words. He took a deep
breath and forced the speech out of his mouth. “She was doing some
work with me. Some experimental work with television programming.
Is she there? Can I speak with her?”

There was a moment of
silence. “I’m sorry, but Suzanne passed away a few weeks ago. We’re
still trying to come to terms with it.”

"Can I ask how she
died?”

“Exposure. I know that
sounds crazy, but it’s what the hospital said. She’d suffered some
kind of mental breakdown and refused to come indoors because she
felt the walls were breathing. She sat outside for days and died
from exposure to the cold. Is there anything I can help you with?
Do you need her parent’s number or anything?”

“No,” Brian whispered.
“There’s nothing you can do for me… There’s nothing anyone can do
for me.”

He walked away from the
phone booth like his shoes were made from lead, shuffling,
stumbling, unable to consciously control his movements. Suzanne
Webster had been exposed to Viper-Sig and suffered a mental
collapse that ended her life. Bradley Etherington was exposed to
Viper-Sig and had a psychotic episode that ended in a police
shootout. Thank Christ Consec didn’t have Viper-Sig too.

He sat in his car and
desired the same end as Suzanne Webster. Maybe if he sat here long
enough he would get cold and die from hypothermia.

It was then that the
vision began.

A wonderful vision
derived from his new and cancerous brain matter.

He felt he was looking
at himself in a mirror, but quickly realised he was watching a
television set. His own face staring back out at him. “Brian,” his
TV reflection said. “You have found yourself in a difficult
position.”

“I’m in hell,” he
replied. “I’m looking into the future and I see nothing.”

“There is nothing in
the future,” the TV Brian replied. “There is nothing but oblivion.
Television oblivion. The future of the cathode ray tube is to
broadcast death by radiation. A radiation of the small screen that
shall transform the souls of those who watch it. It shall reshape
the fabric of their minds, reshape the very topography of the human
brain and lead its viewers, hypnotized, into oblivion.”

“I don’t know what I
should do,” he said.

“There is little you
can do other than preach the gospels of the television age. You may
become literally the video-word and bring forward your knowledge.
Your knowledge and gospels have the chance to transcend even your
own death and rebuild resonance to your name.”

“I don’t like my name…
My mother called me Brian Olivier. Consec renamed me Brian
Spectrometer. They said it was a special name.”

“Then you shall have a
new name.”

Brian inhaled deeply.
“Yes.”

“Then say your special
name.”

“I am Professor Brian
O’Blivion… I am the literal video-word made flesh… And I shall
bring my gospels to the world.”

----- X -----

The vagrants were
shuffling in a line. They collected their bowls of soup and hot
coffees and huddled at tables. The mission was open until ten in
the evening then they were back on the street. Brian felt like
joining the queue. He wanted to shed his responsibilities, live
homeless and drink himself to a stupor under a bridge as the cancer
consumed him.

Bianca was serving the
meals. She saw him. She must have seen some immediate outward sign
of distress because she handed off her food serving position to a
volunteer and rushed over to meet him. “Father, what’s wrong?”

“Everything is wrong…
The world is ending, Bianca; and I am its destructor.”

Bianca took him
upstairs to her office and tried to coax it out of him. Had he been
to Pittsburgh? Yes. Had he found a way to contact his research
student? Yes and she was dead. “I fear they may murder me,” he
said. “I fear they will also murder you if I stay.”

“Nobody is going to
commit murder, Father. Those people, those students died by
accidental exposure. You couldn’t have known. You’re not a
murderer.”

“But Consec are
murderers. They have plans to murder on a grand scale. My partners
plan to use Veraceo to eradicate people like these you feed here.
They want to rid North America of what they consider its diseased
flesh.”

Brian laid it out. All
of it. Part of him wanted to leave so that Bianca would be
untouched and unknowing to the horror Consec planned. He wanted to
leave her out of it so she herself would not become a threat to
Consec by having knowledge of their plans; but selfishly, he wanted
to unburden himself. He didn’t want to be alone.

“I’ll help you,” she
said. “You must stand up to these people and I will help you
confront them.”

“You can’t confront
these people,” he conceded. “They’re a mist, an unimpeachable fog.
They have plans and schemes and they have the power to bring their
ideology to the masses disguised as the very air we breathe.”

Bianca paced the room.
“We can’t do nothing. I won’t be idle in the face of tyranny. I
refuse. Do you see those people downstairs? Vagrants are what most
people see, but I see human beings. I see trapped and hindered
potential waiting to be unlocked. The very thought that a
corporation, a business, would choose people like that for
execution based on their economic output jars at my soul. I have
tried my hardest to help the most unfortunate. I understand more
than most that the destitute can become a charge upon society, but
they can also be made productive. I don’t know anybody who would
want to live in a society where the unproductive are graded and
discarded.”

“You haven’t met these
people,” Brian said with a sigh. “That is exactly what they
want.”

“What does Barry think
of this?”

“Barry?” Brian had to
take a few breaths before answering, not even wanting to say the
words else they make the statement more true. “Barry has become one
of them. It is his idea to broadcast the Videodrome programme.”

“And he knows what it
does?”

Brian nodded. “He knows
what it does and that is why he wants to broadcast it. He wants to
test its efficiency.”

“Have you talked to
him? Face to face?”

Brian shook his head.
“No. I haven’t.”

Bianca came to his side
and knelt ahead of him. She took his hand in hers. A father and
daughter pose they hadn’t formed in decades. “Then you must go and
try. You’ve been partners since you were at college together. He’ll
listen if you try hard enough. He can’t really be this monster
you’re making him out to be. He was never like this. I’ve known him
all my life. He entertained me as a child, he hugged me when Mother
died and if he’s been swayed and taken down a dark road then you
must plead with him and try to bring him back. Beg him. Turn him
around. You must try, Father. You must find a way.”

----- X -----

Brian suffered
nightmares of the Videodrome programme. What were they doing to the
girl in the cage? What was her name? How did she end up there to be
tortured for an entertainment show? Was she whipped? Choked? Raped?
Drowned? Electrocuted? Peter Fluorite had said the brain knew when
they were faking which meant they were hurting people for real.
With every intrusive thought he felt brewing resentment and anger.
Impotent rage towards Consec. He would burn them if he could, kill
them if he had the courage. Violence is the outcome of a man
stripped of his identity and he had lost even his name to these
people. Hardly surprising he fantasised about murdering Consec
Leader.

Thoughts of violence
yet again.

Visions of
violence.

He drove to Queen
Street East. Spectacular Optical.

Barry’s flagship store
looked a little grimier than usual. The storefront hadn’t been
cleaned and the window display was looking worn. This wasn’t his
usual manner. Normally Barry was obsessive about the high street
image.

“I’m Brolley, Can I be
helpin’ you?” The black man had a smile fit for a toothpaste
commercial and plenty of charm.

“I’m looking for Barry.
I’m Brian, I’m Barry’s business partner.” He held out a hand to
shake.

“Ah, man. I only been
here for the week. Still finding ma’ way around. Barry’s too busy
to be managing the stores he say, that’s why he bring me in to be
store manager. He’s out back in the grindin’ bay, do you know where
that is?”

“Yes, thanks.”

Brian walked behind the
counter and discovered that an adjoining wall had been knocked
through into the next-door shop. An expansion into another building
that couldn’t be seen from the front street. The newly acquired
space was taken up with packing tables and lots of flattened
cardboard boxes. Whatever work needed the extra space hadn’t
started yet but it involved a lot of packaging.

Barry was in his office
sitting at a newly installed computer terminal. “That looks fancy,”
Brian said.

Barry smiled, but his
face looked worn somehow, saddened. “They call it a Mycron 2000.
Brand new. We’re going to use it for streamlining the manufacturing
pipeline.” Brian took a seat with his old friend, easing himself
into the chair carefully. “Jesus, Brian, are you okay? You look
weak.”

“I am weak. I’m on a
special diet to try and recover from the chemo but sometimes I feel
tired. I went to Pittsburgh. I met Peter. I learned about the new
TV show. Videodrome. I even saw how it’s made.”

Barry nodded. He looked
down. He looked around the room. He looked everywhere except at
Brian. “I know,” he said softly. “Peter told me. More importantly,
Peter told Consec Security you had been there. I don’t know how to
begin explaining.”

“You can say you’re
sorry. Start with that.”

“Jesus… I am sorry…
Have you ever had that feeling when things are slipping beyond your
control? Consec wanted me to come and see you to assess your… they…
they fear you may be a liability. They want certainty the project
is secure. They were going to send some hardass Consec man called
Keller, but I said I would talk with you.”

“They’re torturing
people, Barry. They’re torturing people on camera to make a
television show and Peter told me you’re going to broadcast
it.”

Barry shook his head.
“No, that won’t happen. The Consec idea is to broadcast. It’s their
idea and that’s why I’m still involved. If I wasn’t there it would
be broadcast already. I’m stalling. I’m buying time. I’m doing what
I can to minimize their insanity. But believe me. If I’m not there
to raise problems and derail things, then the Videodrome programme
would be in the wild by now. I’m going to stall them for as long as
I can, for years if possible.”

“I have an idea,” Brian
said. “Of another use for Veraceo. The first version, Veraceo-One
seems to be safe. You were exposed to it. We tested a thousand
college kids with it and things seem to be okay.”

Barry had his elbows on
the table and rubbed his face with both hands. “Yes. So far they
seem okay. No cancer proteins have been detected.”

“What I’m thinking of
doing is a smaller test, still aligned with Consec ideals. At
Bianca’s mission she has homeless people coming through the door
every day. I’m thinking of exposing these people to Veraceo-One
with content designed to make them more productive members of
society.”

Barry leaned back in
his chair, he made solid eye contact for the first time.
“Interesting.”

“If Consec fear that
unproductive people are a risk to North America, imagine how
interested they would be to discover a way to reprogram them.
Imagine if we could improve productivity across the board. Rather
than killing these people with brain tumours, let’s emancipate them
from poverty.”

“That is interesting...
The problem is Consec view you as compromised.”

“I’ll work covertly,
off the Consec radar. I have the funds, I can transform Bianca’s
soup kitchen into a cathode ray testing facility.”

“And I can stall the
Videodrome broadcast whilst you work on the alternative,” Barry
said. He suddenly had more vigour. Energised by the suggestion.
“Oh, Jesus. You have no idea what kind of relief this brings.”