MINDSTORM (A FEARSOME, LOATHSOME JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF THE SAVAGE ID) By W.C.Leadbeater # CHAPTER I THE SECRET ORIGIN OF THE SLIME-THING # GALACTIC POTHEALER It was the year 2001. It was a good year for a science fiction novel. I had been born in the year 1984, another good year for a science fiction novel. The Invisible High School hulked like a gargoyle upon the North Dakota prairies behind me. The small town of Invisible City lay to the north as though prey for that hulking shape; to the south the Cat's Foot Hills rose purple into the evening. Beyond them were the Iron Claw Mountains. I had just finished registration for high school: yes, you want this English course, you want to be a writer, don't you? & you could use the Spanish; they like you to have a couple of years of foreign language in those famous writing schools...W.C.Leadbeater, class genius; you're going to Harvard or Yale, aren't you, make all your townsfolk proud? Walking across the parking lot to the Fratmobile I looked at the streetlights & saw rainbows, green, purple halos; a halo of gold w/ streaks of all-color around the moon. My eyes burned. Toni McDonald, a tall, blond girl w/ large, round breasts & androgynously short hair approached the ancient gas-guzzling vehicle. I waited up for her, hoping maybe to cruise w/ the super-jockette. She was a regular tomboy, an alpha female, at the top of the dominance hierarchy. I rolled down the window of the Fratmobile; she leaned inside, cleavage playing peek-a-boo w/ her blouse. She spoke eagerly, anxiously, as though fulfilling some ancient dream. "Oh Lead, how're ya doin'? Could you possibly give me a ride home? My sister has the car tonight &..." "Yeah, that's a nice car," I said. She was referring to 1 of the new, flying aircars which Detroit was just starting to turn out. "Sure...if you can stand riding in an old fraternity beer wagon. We got her used from Alpha Delt--Alfalfa High, that's why we call her the Fratmobile. I think she used to be a luxury car...about the time I was born." A pile of comic books lay on the seat; she scooted them aside to slide her arm around me. "Hey, don't wrinkle my Slime-thing!" I was a hardcore comics fan: I had just been down to Dawn's Drugs to pick up the latest issue of Slime-thing, who was an ordinary nerd in his secret identity of Claudius Schlausmuller until he twisted his decoder ring to turn into the violent reptilian beast known only as the Savage Id. Everybody's playing happy Freuds! She drew her legs up against mine, pressed them close--she was wearing nylons the color of night sky. She put her arm around me as I fired up the mighty Frat-turbos & cruised out of the parking lot. "How'd'ya like being alone w/ your favorite nurse?" she asked. I could almost see her in a white uniform. "You've still got to get into nursing school," I said. "& then you have to pass your boards." "I'm graduating this year & I've got a 3.5. No way I'm not going to get into nursing school. Maybe someday I'll even take care of you. You know, if you bust a leg or something." She pecked me on the cheek saying, "Let's go out to the Invisible Badlands & park...it's so much fun looking at those wind-carved stone pillars, those tremendous rock & sand structures, when the sun is setting; you know, it's like blood...like the sun is the heart of a serpent blazing on an altar & Night has taken her knife & stabbed the lizard-thing in the heart & all that blood just sort of spreads like paint--like your paintings when you get that transparent effect--like gel & gloss over the arroyos & wind-carved cliffs...it's beautiful....Come on, let's go before it's completely dark!" Cruising down 15th Ave toward her house I knew full well what she was up to. I said, "That's a pretty turgid description..." "Mrs Clawson gave me an A+ for it in English. Except for the part about the paint." We cruised Dawn's Highway past a 16-wheeler w/ an authentic gerp at the wheel, all duded up in cowboy hat & Western shirt. As I moved on out to the center lane I passed a group of zocs from the Invisible College. They wore a medley of clothes & wild hairstyles; disco, beatnik, hippy, punk.... I cruised past the car full of freaks & weirdos, turned off Dawn's Highway onto a gravel road. The sun was rapidly sinking now. There wouldn't be enough light to read the latest issue of Slime-thing. Just how did the Savage Id get free from the clutches of Superego? & why had Superego turned evil? Were her thoughts being telepathically controlled from space? Aw, screw that shit. I'd just picked up the fastest, most bulbous girl in the Invisible High, & she was patting me on the leg; her soft machines were rubbing against my arm; & her lips were sugar kisses upon my cheek. Red rock crawled about us like turtles that had been suspended from towers of eroded sandstone. The starry night was as van Gogh had painted it: Circles of color around every pinpoint star as I pulled the mighty Fratmobile over to the edge of the road. I turned the key to ACCESSORIES in order to leave the FM playing. Though the only station you could get in Invisible was KRAP. All at once she slid her hand down my pants, which is typical behavior for an alpha female--androgyny, you know. & I was aching, throbbing--the caress of dark nails sent my Purple Root into spasms. (The Slime-thing is not equipped w/ an ordinary phallus. Instead he has a warty Purple Root which no woman can resist.) "I'm Catholic...you are, too, Toni--it's wrong!" I pulled her hand back from its mission of arousal--but I wasn't really trying that hard to stop her. But the Pope was no longer infallible & the hand yet groped. She whispered, "I love you," & I wondered how many other men had heard the same line. She reached up & started to unbutton her blouse, black-pol- ished nails spreading wide a green shirt to expose suntanned perfection while I sat in embarassed silence. I'd never vorkled before. A U-boat fell out of her bra. (I think the expression originated w/ Timothy Leary; it was 21st Century slang for marijuana.) "Are you going to smoke that?" I asked apprehensively. I was the class genius, I didn't want to blow my mind on dangerous drugs. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Pulling a lighter out of a shirt open now like a vest, she asked, "This your 1st time playing U-boat?" The thing crackled & sparked as the flame hit the reactor fuel. Then in another moment harsh smoke entered my lungs as I took a hit, afraid of seeming unkool. Peer pressure will make you do anything. "Personally, I prefer bong hits to joints," she said as she bogarted the burning submarine like some crazed elven thing. The golden halo around the moon disappeared. The moon was all-silver now, shedding white light onto perfect breasts; white heat was created as we united. I was having some kind of bizarre hallucinatory experience in the still heat/night of early September. I looked in the rearview mirror & a woman's face stared back at me. I looked at myself & saw breasts. I shuddered to think of the terrible insanity of U-boat; then in another instant was in another time, another place.... # I HAD TURNED INTO A BASKETBALL PLAYER TURNING INTO AN ANGEL I awoke. I had a splitting hangover. I looked across the room at the chest of drawers, saw myself in the mirror: Tall. Blond. Large, round breasts. The body of an athlete. I had turned into Toni. I closed my eyes & remembered Lead. W.C.Leadbeater. The class brain. Oh sure, he was fat, but he had the world's cutest face! & he was so smart. He didn't have a girlfriend, either--yet. That's where I came in. Love was the drug & I needed to score! I was going to ask him to the Senior Prom...if I could get this great, groaning slime creature off from on top of me: The Slime-thing was making mad & passionate love to me & just when I realized that no woman can resist the Savage Id & was starting to enjoy it the SNOOZE ALARM went off & I was brought back to reality from my dream. Reality: Whatever that is. I threw my pillow at the goddamn cheap clock radio that didn't even have a built-in DAT...my father could actually remember the day when DATs were expensive hi-fi gear; now you could get DATs in your Walkman for about $20 at Coast-to-Coast. Lead had a really expensive 1 that had a built-in noise-processor for de-hissing the old Roxy Music tapes he zocced to. He always said something about the noise-processor being a model of evolution; any selection process is a form of noise-reduction, if you regard deleterious genes as noise.... I headed for the shower. A few minutes later I was dressed only in my black crepe bikini. Then I headed out onto the sun-porch, my only thought on the last day of summer to work on my tan. & read a few romance novels. # HOW I LOST MY KOOL So I was sitting out on the porch absorbing liquid gold from the skies...setting aside my romance, Sophia's Choice, I propped my sunglasses back on my forehead & laid the book over my eyes. The words crawled like insects, reptiles...I closed my eyes to daydream: I didn't have an unromantic tomboy name like Toni; I was Sophia: a romantic name for a romantic heroine, decked out in black velvet & black satin on prom night as Lead led in a gold polyester zoccie suit, bodies swaying to "Mother of Pearl...." Suddenly Joe Kool cut in. Joe Kool: The only black kid in a redneck honkey North Dakota high school. The toughest, meanest son-of-a-bitch on the vorkle-ball team...he had to be to deal w/ whitey on his home turf. Light arced across my closed eyes like a sudden sunrise; I opened them to stare deep into limpid brown eyes. "Joe!" I exclaimed. "Give me back my book!" He danced away, waving the book & grinning as he teased me. His ivory teeth flashed in his deep brown face, the brown nearest black. "Reading trash again, Toni? Shouldn't you be reading the Classics?" I grabbed him in order to get the book away from him when all of a sudden he was kissing me. I closed my eyes & it was W.C.Leadbeater; then in another moment I was pushing Kool away. "I can't. I already have a boyfriend...." "Who?" He tossed the novel in the trash. I fetched it out again, peeled off a disgusting moldy banana peel & some eggshells. "Lead. No woman can resist the charms of the Savage Id." Joe Kool was silent then, left me in peace. The Id was his best friend. His only friend. I lay on my stomach & loosened the straps on my bikini. The sun touched my bare back & my breasts spilled out sideways...I wished Lead was around so he could see. I'd get him. Soon. Screw him silly, too. The sun sank in the sky & I dressed before going out to register for the coming quarter of Invisible High. Axel Rod's Advanced English class? Is W.C.Leadbeater going to be in that class? I'll take it! No, I don't care if there's a scheduling conflict! I headed on out of the big swinging glass doors & spotted the Fratmobile in the parking lot. What incredible luck! Track star for 4 years running now, I raced a little to catch up w/ Lead, then sauntered casually up to flirt at the Frat-window...I hope I'm not being too obvious.... Alright! He's gonna do it! We're cruising for the Invisible Badlands! Goddamn uncomfortable keeping submarines in your bra, but it was 1 place the narcs'd never look. Unless they had a warrant. "Personally, I prefer bong hits to joints." The acid smoke dissolved my personality like some reagent in a chemist's still; now the libidinous lust was over & I was me again Toni was Toni again. The rhythm of the night surrounded All like some unseen Mother when suddenly the tempo of the heat was interrupted by a newscaster's voice: "Saklas, greatest of all scientific criminals, & only recently having escaped from a maximum security mental institution, has announced that unless all govts accept him as Dictator of Earth he will activate VADIS, the Vast Active Destructive Intelligence System which he has launched into Earth orbit. VADIS is an advanced psionic weapons system capable of creating mindstorms, periods of artificially-induced mass-insanity. "The UN has unilaterally refused Saklas' threats of blackmail & VADIS has been put into effect. Even as I am speaking a wave of insanity is spreading westward over America. New York is already a disaster area as gangs of looters & the criminally insane roam the streets w/ no authority to restrain them--even the Police are hopelessly insane. "The mindstorm front has already advanced to North Dakota; citizens are warned to take immediate shelter until further notice...." My lover became a demon in a dark bra. The sharp bite of fangs. She whispered, "I am Nekbael, Princess of the Planet Lucifer. It is mine to resurrect the dead; w/ my mouth I resurrect them." Her batwings fluttered, cramped by the roof of the New Yorker overhead. Now why'd I have to go & get stoned on a night like this? Frightened, I shoved away what had once been the woman I loved. The black batwinged Night-goddess would've been beautiful had she not been a fearsome demon. All my life I had dreamed of being a science fiction author & now I was caught up in something beyond my wildest dreams. A horror which was at the same time beautiful, she was totally, wholly feminine in spite of androgynously small breasts--not like the tomboy athlete Toni; in an instant I knew that I desired her. I asked her what she wanted, trembling in fear & loathing of the dread insanity VADIS was creating. It was pure, undifferentiated chaos, like before the world began: when there had been neither male nor female. Hissing savagely she repeated, "I am Nekbael, Princess of Lucifer. I thought-holoed my image to you from my approaching spaceship to warn you that you are in dire peril from an evil cosmic entity known as Achamoth, scion of Saklas, who fancies himself Demiurge, World-Creator...." She said, "Listen: There is much I have to tell you before the half-life of this projection dies: Our scouting missions reached your world centuries ago, where our--to you--hideous aspect created the myth of demons. Our religion teaches God as All-Mother: the Source--a Power totally beyond the Cosmos; Saklas is her miscreant offspring. Insane, he hates his Mother, Sophia; insane, he hates the world which he created & would now destroy--you alone have been given the power to destroy Saklas; for you see, you are the true Rootboy covered w/ slime; the cosmicomic hero known to his admirers as THE SAVAGE ID!!! W/ that the thought-holo dissolved. I was alone in the mighty Frat-vehicle w/ an insane Toni. Her eyes burned w/ the fire of paranoia & I saw for a moment again there the Union of Opposites; she spoke unintelligibly saying, "Fire up the Frat-cruiser! Lead, get us home!" Even as she fumbled to straighten her clothes I turned over the Frat-turbos, Invisible my destination....Hell, who can sleep in this heat, this night? # THE THORAZINE POLICE LIVE INSIDE OF MY HEAD The mighty Fratmobile cruised the streets of Invisible City, a city in turmoil: The insane were everywhere, each in his private cosmos; some of them were violent, smashing things w/ wild abandon, throwing rocks & bricks; others merely laughed gaily or talked to themselves or the wind, seeing their own demons; others were caught in acts of love: Caught in steeply sided unreality the naked ran past, howling obscenely. Damned souls w/ hunger in their eyes sent clutching fingers reaching skyward like dawn--a dawn that would never come. Violence was everywhere; a flying stone broke the windshield. "Shit!" Toni screamed as the rock landed in her lap. "Did you see that?" She picked the rock up, hurled it back toward the Oblivion from which it had come. "We've got to get to my place," I said. "I've never told you this...my Pop's a schizophrenic. He's got a prescription for thorazine. We can take some of his pills--we can beat the storms...." "Thorazine..." she echoed, as though not really hearing or understanding. "The end of the world...it's here," Toni said. Certainly the churches that we passed had an abundance of the faithful on the rooftops praying. "When the mindstorms hit," I said to Toni, "you...changed: You became a she-demon--you claimed to be a Princess from the planet Lucifer...." In a schizoid instant Toni became flippant: "I always was a princess. Have I got a collection of blow-dryers or what?" I said, "You--Nekbael--talked about the resurrection of the dead; you said, W/ my mouth I resurrect them....What do you think all this means?" "Resurrection by mouth...communion? Eating the body?" The sky ripped open & monster bats poured forth. I jerked to avoid them.... "Lead, Lead, why are you swerving all over the road?" I didn't say anything. If the poor sucker didn't see the monster bats already she'd be seeing them soon enough. I was absorbed in some infinite, tenebrous darkness which ate me & yet hungered. I looked at Toni; she only had One breast, some potency shuddered w/in her blue jeans--a vision of androgyny as perverse as the monster bats which wheeled & darted about the old Chrysler.... I snapped out of it when I saw that both ends of the narrow, tree-lined street we were racing down were blocked by mobs. Insane mobs. They were waving clubs, sticks, bricks; some were carrying guns. It looked like we were dead. "Hang on to your seat, Toni, I'm going to try to zoom thru them!" I floorboarded the accelerator. The ancient automobile raced along the Invisible street, accelerating w/ every instant. It was either break on thru or die trying. Beside me Toni babbled, "The gnostics believed that Jesus had a twin; he..." "Toni, shut up!!! Can't you see that we're going to get killed!!!!" The mob of zombies grew nearer; it was real horror show in the Invisible City in that heat/night, a remake/remodel of Night of the Living Dead w/ schizophrenic zombies. The Fratmobile slammed into a human wall. Madmen sprawled everywhich way; lunatics in the grass; the mangled & bleeding in the street--our great momentum was not enough to make it thru the sea of zombies. We skidded thru breaking bone, mangling flesh, collided w/ a tree. The windows broke out. Angry clubs darted in at us as Toni screamed.... An awesome, indescribable change came over me, a raging power: the power of the Savage Id. I changed in an instant into the Slime-thing, guardian of Truth, Justice, & Niceness, the hero of the comic books that were now being rent & scattered by a fearsome mob. Shit! Now I'd never find out how the Id got away from Superego! I was a monstrous lizard-thing, part insect, like a praying mantis/salamander hybrid w/ dozens of writhing, suckered tentacles, a lion's mane upon my back, bestial fur. I was a Rootboy covered w/ Slime. A dreadlock Congo bongo I. I rose up w/ a savage roar, scattering the mob of crazies like the thresher scatters chaff. Even the insane know fear & loathing, & whatever knows fear & loathing burns at the Slime-thing's touch!!! There were flames there in the night, a mighty conflagration...like psychedelic warlords, the mob was going up in smoke.... They may have been insane, but they weren't stupid. The entire mob broke & ran, dispersed screaming.... # ROOTBOY GOES HOME TO MAMA Then I was in another place. Dimly, I recalled wrecking the old Chrysler--but how had Toni & I escaped? I carried her in my arms, adrenalin giving me strength. I walked up the hill toward our house. I was sure I would be safe once I got inside... Suddenly the door swung open as I tried the key. W/ fearful astonishment I saw that my older brother Ralph was actually Captain Strange, Master of the Occult Arts. My brother Jack was Fearless Taco, whose acid-ray could zotz anyone; Gerald was the Grim Reaper, Death in black cape; Biggolith, the Pig from Outer Space, was feeding his face w/ a submarine sandwich; & Small Cute Bup (Fred) was Bupping It Up, sticking his finger at Ma's poonchy toomy & going, "You be dimmy, you be witty; you be dimmy & be witty--you be dimmy-witty! Itty-ditty!" Well, not everyone can be an awesome galactic-class superhero. Pop was by the kitchen sink w/ an open bottle of pre- scription tranquilizers. "Ralph...take 1 of these. Now! You aren't a superhero...you're stormed...." Ralph danced gleefully as he waved his hands in an arcane gesture, shooting off sapphire bullets of pure light. Pop said, "Lead...you made it home! & w/ your date. Here, take 1 of these pills...it'll pull you out of the storm!" Pop poured 4 little, round, brown pills into my awaiting hands: 400 milligrams, a standard dose. Ma had apparently already taken a whole fistful of the little pills; she fetched a cloth from the sink & tended to Toni's bruises. My ladyfriend was slowly coming around, although I think she was too stormed to realize what was going on. I was just sane enough to realize that I was no Id. Though my libido was running wild: I saw a perfect breast & knew desire; I touched a thigh & Death smiled. Pops said, "I've been listening to the news...the newscasters are all stormed; some of them have quit making sense...but a new world Govt is being formed to deal w/ VADIS: the Thorazine Police. Mental patients who've already been cured are immune to the schiz-kriegs; they're organizing, bringing order back to an insane world: The Thorazine Police are going to start making tranquilizers available OTC; they're even thinking of putting low dosages in beer....Coke has already taken out a trademark on Thorazine Cola!" "Do not fear, Pops!" Fearless Taco said. "I will zotz the dread villains from another dimension w/ my acid ray!" The Biggolith merely headed for the fridge & made himself a sandwich: cold cuts, lettuce, tomato, mayo: No matter what the crisis, Dick's stomach came 1st. Fearless Taco forgot about his acid ray, a plastic gun that looked like it must've cost about 95 cents, said, "Hey, we got any leftover tacos in there?" "Just refried beans," Biggolith said, chowing down on his sandwich. Meanwhile, Captain Strange was cruising on the astral plane, taking trips thruout the brain, battling the forces of Chaos & Evil in strange dimensions beyond Love & Death. "I see God imprisoned in the Cosmic Circus! What is beyond God? A Mirror!" Mirrors: I was still perceiving the world w/ fractured, shattered, schizophrenic vision, as though thru a scanner, dark & broken. It was as though I saw 2 worlds; in 1 the side of my head ripped open & a stairwell descended out of my brain into the abyss, where something cried out in the night; in the other Toni was just now coming around, smiled, took my hand--a dream of androgyny. A horrible transmogrification overcame her: Her large, beautiful breasts shrank rapidly; her hips narrowed--she was a man now, kinky in the makeup that had been sexy just an hour ago. I thought of Roxy Horror & my Frankenfurter swelled; I thought of the Id & libido moved my Purple Root. & I still didn't know Superego's secret identity! "Pop," I cried. "The thorazine...it isn't working! I need more....Toni is turning into a man!" Her lips were ruby fire upon a man's lips; crimson drag.... I shuddered. Horror & revulsion in mystical Union. Pop saw my mortified look of absolute dread, tried to be reassuring: "It'll take about an hour to hit you; it takes a week or 2 of regular use for it to achieve maximum effect...but I'll give you 200 milligrams more anyway; that'll bring your dose up to 600...." Even as I was at the sink--the pills were sweet on the tip of my tongue--there was a pounding at the door. "Don't let anyone in!" Toni cried, fully awakened now--& slowly reverting into a woman. A vorkle-ball player turning into an angel.... Pop went to the door, peered cautiously out the window, pushing back the little flowered, ruffed curtains that Ma had sewn by hand. He pulled it open. A man in black entered. In suspicion & repugnance Biggolith backed away, crying that it was a strangler. A svelte woman who also wore black followed. The sexy she-bop, probably in her early 30s, said, "We're w/ the Thorazine Police. I'm Sergeant Cindy Bender; this is Officer George Two Ways. Did someone here dial 911?" Two Ways looked almost a medicine man who had been stuffed into a cop uniform. Cindy was incredibly cute in spite of her flat chest; her ass was unremittingly round & her hair was perfect; then everything went nuts & I was back in the world of loco brains. Fearless Taco said, "I will defend Daddy Doder Doodyman w/ my acid ray!" The thing whirred, buzzed, & lit up. Grim Reaper said, "I will turn the power of Death itself against you, sinister doers of wrong!" The Grim Reaper muttered a mystical incantation & waved his scythe, which was merely a butterknife. The man, an Indian, probably a tribal policeman from the Invisible Reservation who'd been drafted, said, "I can see why you dialed 911!" The lady cop fired a pistol, rapidly, 3 deadly shots. The noise it made was violent, powerful, in an instant Captain Strange, Grim Reaper, & Fearless Taco fell. They slumped over lifelessly. I stared at their inert bodies feeling insane rage build up inside me: again, I could feel the transformation: My flesh was a crawling, writhing mass; my suckered arms waved chaotically. "You...you killed them!" I screamed, helpless in my violent rage. "It was a tranquilizer dart," the Policewoman said by way of explanation. "5 cc.s of haldol...enough to de-storm someone for a week....If our conventional tranks have enough of an effect on the mindstorms...." The Thorazine Policeman said. "How many in your family, Mr Leadbeater?" "Me, my wife, my 6 sons...my son's girlfriend," Ma said softly, a haggard look of worry on her face. Yet she didn't voice the eternal worry of the Catholic Mother: Son, have you been fornicating? They checked our IDs; handed out whole bottles full of prescription pills like they were candy. Toni seemed to vacillate between male & female forms as the world writhed like an animated van Gogh. Ma said, "Toni...its too dangerous for you to go back out there tonight. Stay here until tomorrow, at least. I'll fix up the hide-a-bed." Toni accepted the offer; made a brief call to her parents to explain where she was. If their brains weren't so fried they couldn't understand her. I think I was finally coming down from the submarine, but the thermonuclear explosion in my head continued & continued: The Dream Police were real. A braless Dream in a black uniform was shooting up Captain Strange w/ tranks. Meanwhile, I had to try to explain to Ma that I had wrecked her precious Grocery Wagon. For awhile she was livid w/ fury, then her mood swung violently & she burst into tears....Schizophrenia is like that: Inappropriate emotions. Goal-less behavior. A split in the mind... I laughed...schizophrenically--Toni would be spending the night at my place, something to boast about at school--if school could even continue in the face of nova conditions--but chastely; not to sleep beside her, feel my firmness quest w/in a supple mechanism.... Guilt... Shame... Dread... I'd sinned; I'd fornicated; mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.... Toni hung up the visi-phone. A proud, fierce light burned in her eyes. "The Dream Police...that's what I'd like to be when I get out of high school...a psychiatric nurse...." I put my arm around her, said, "I'm proud!" Outside the window the night was a bangled, jeweled, androgynous whore-mother. # End of file Press RIGHT ARROW (#6 key) of the numeric keypad to load the next file.