Also by Seb Doubinsky
White City
Goodbye Babylon
Mothballs: Quantum Poems
Zen and the Art of Poetry Maintenance
Spontaneous Combustions
Copyright © 2015 by Seb Doubinsky
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-940456-25-6
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-940456-30-0
Cover design by Rain Saukas
Printed in the United States of America
To my friends Tabish Khair, Kris Saknussemm,
Matt Bialer and Matt Gangi.
To my wife, Sofie, for her support and much needed irony.
To my children, Théodore and Selma, for interrupting me
exactly when I need to be.
Special thanks to Matt Gangi, for letting me use the song-titles
of his wonderful first album, “A,” as chapter titles for
The Potemkin Overture.
1. THE POTEMKIN OVERTRUE
“a model of life is the reason why
we take steps close our eyes dances like a puppet
we take steps close our eyes dances like a puppet
hanging
waiting on the line”
Matt Gangi, Waiting on the Line.
One. Subject Positions
The list of proxies unrolled on the computer’s 22” screen, bone white on navy blue. Markus Olsen liked his interfaces old-style. A conservative habit, to be noted. The only one. I swear. He sipped his cold coffee absent-mindedly. Disgusting. The golden wiring of Synth began to connect and unfold behind his eyes in fractal possibilities, but he stopped it. There were no particular mental associations or hallucinations he would pleasurably link with the word “disgusting.” Maybe some people did. He was sure some people did. Freaks. His eyes focused on the screen and he put the polystyrene cup back on the desk. The last proxy was followed by an IP number, which he checked. It was a valid number. Sucker.
“Gotcha!” he said out loud in the emptiness of his office.
He forwarded the address to the Central Office. In movies, this would have been an exciting moment, with music, close-ups and vivid colors. Action. Sweat. Testosterone. Here, it was the banal conclusion of a banal chase after a banal medium-skilled hacker trying to earn fame by attacking the city’s National Bank security systems. The joker was going to have someone knock at his door in about twelve minutes.
He remembered.
The door shook under the heavy kicks. Like in a movie. Karen hid in the bathroom in her underwear and tee. No bra. They had woken up half an hour ago. The watch still ticked beside his pillow. He thought “What the fuck, this is it.” He ran from the bedroom to the dining-room and sat in front of his computer. Started re-formatting his hard drive knowing it was useless. The Force could retrieve anything. But it made him feel better. The thought of it. The fact they would have to work a little to earn their corporate bread. Time stood still in the tiny apartment he shared with beautiful Karen and the earth-shaped mole in the small of her back. Eleven months of happiness. And now . . . He heard the door splinter.
Bad vibes. Synth was fading, letting gloom set in. Same shit with all drugs, going down. Synth was no better. Was worse. You only knew it faded when it was already too late and couldn’t stir the beast.
Thrown on the ground, he was about to be.
Dismounted like a rodeo rider.
Dumped by a disdainful girlfriend.
Fragments of the door flew into the tiny apartment and a mess of blue uniforms trampled into the small space, yelling unintelligible orders. A scream from Karen. Sheer terror. They found her in the bathroom. One officer was sitting on him now, telling him it was useless to resist.
“As if,” he said.
A steel-capped boot broke his nose. Hadn’t seen it coming. Heard Karen scream again and he fainted in a darkness smelling of his own blood.
Synth was disappearing like a beautiful cloud chased by a cold wind. He knew the symptoms.
He felt the little cellophane bag and rolled the last two pellets between his fingers.
*
Going down in the elevator, he saw his reflection in the corporate mirror. Images came in loops. Vertigo. Fear of heights. Free fall. Crashing. Sweat quicksilvered on his face. It was black. He tried to smile it off and proceeded to settle his necktie, his hands moist with sticky black goo.
*
The subway was packed and Markus found himself crushed against the window opposite the sliding door. Ten years already. Karen screaming in the bathroom. The Potemkin Crew. The guys, the compadres, the friends. A strange feeling of old-fashioned nostalgia swept through his body. Sehnsucht. He recognized the first symptoms of Synth withdrawal. The melancholy. The regrets. The illusions of the past. Sentimentality. Self-pity. A longing for nineteenth century poetry.
The neons had taken on a bluish hue. His eyes filled with tears. He had to fight it, although he knew he had already lost. It was hard to be a willing victim, sometimes.
Markus got out at the next stop. He still had twelve to go until home, but he couldn’t wait. He pushed backs and crushed feet as he made for the door. Gasped for air on the platform. The glimmering lights of a soda vending machine attracted his eyes. The prices were outrageous but he had no choice. Drop the coins in, grab the ice-cold can. A slow motion dream. Cheap effects but real. I need to find a quiet place. He stumbled up the stairs. The rumble of the city welcomed him. The scent of CO2 was blessed. His eyes looked around. A quiet place. He saw a bench, next to a phone booth. His feet moved in that direction. The ghost of Synth was already sitting on the bench, waving to him. Yes, you control me now, you bastard. But wait and see.
Markus sat down and his fingers twisted the soda can’s screw-top. Cars zoomed by, pedestrians walked and waited, stoplights switched. A symphony. He smiled. The colors were blinding. Synth would tone everything down. It always did.
He rolled the two last pills between his fingers in the pocket of his pants, enjoying the feeling through the cellophane bag. In a few minutes, he would break free from Synth and control it back. Power trip. Total.
Markus dropped the pellets in his open mouth, washing them away with a gulp of the expensive soda. Cars zoomed by, pedestrians walked and waited, stoplights switched. A quiet place. Ten to zero, backwards. Place quiet a. Like it should be. He began to relax. His eyes caught a poster for the upcoming election on a billboard on the opposite side of the avenue. A picture of Olsen, the prime minister and leader of the National-Liberal Party. They shared the same last name. A coincidence? Words from a song floated back. I had to laugh. He decided to be on a beach, with white sand, palm trees and a beautiful sky. And he was. The grumbling of the cars was replaced by the gentle splashing of the waves. Karen would join him soon. He shielded his eyes from the burning sun and looked around. There she was, beautiful in her black bikini. No, monokini. Whatever he chose. The glory of Synth. Karen waved at him and he waved back. A quiet place. Her breasts were magnificent.
*
When Markus finally got up from the bench, he was feeling much better. He brushed sand from his pants, took a deep breath and looked around. He had set Synth on minimal and only the colors seemed more intense, more real in a Technicolor® kind of way. Always a sucker for classics. Fucking nerd. Sørensen’s image flashed behind his eyes. You are on a mission from God and his pipe. But he was on another mission now. He had to locate Dr. Sojo before Synth escaped again and held him captive. The freedom of the Western World depended on Dr. Sojo now. He hailed a passing cab, turning it into a 1940 Chevrolet. Synth had class.
*
The cab driver let him off at the corner of Grundtvig and Laugesen, right in the middle of Sorgbjerg. It was the rundown kingdom of the NoCredits, full of social rejects, immigrants and whoever had been so unlucky as to run out of means to sustain their own living. Of course, Viborg City wasn’t heartless—it cared for its needy and proclaimed it on every billboard and in every speech—so it gave those poor souls a minimum wage that kept their noses above the waterline—just. But of course all the ungrateful bastards and bitches dreamt of big cars and flat screens, so crime helped them achieve the comfort their monthly checks couldn’t provide. And Synth was a great way to make a good tax-invisible stash.
That’s why, like so many fellow Cash or Credit bourgeois citizens, Sorgbjerg had become familiar to him.
*
When he finally located Dr. Sojo’s massive silhouette sitting behind a polystyrened coffee at the Sorgbjerg Central Station cafeteria, he felt a shiver of relief. It had taken him almost three hours. One of the longest chases in Dr. Sojo’s chase history. People thought, people believed, people didn’t know. “At the Green café.” “Behind Nielsen’s appliance store.” “At his apartment.” Until someone thought they had seen him here. Well, fortunately, that someone was right. And here he was, the Wild Goose himself, warming up his big hands around a black coffee, really looking like a NoCred in his worn-out khaki parka.
Dr. Sojo lifted his eyes through the imitation tortoiseshell glasses and a smile parted his heavy beard.
“My favorite customer,” he said, pointing to an empty chair.
Markus sat down, feeling the Synth stretch in him like a satisfied cat. No one knew where Dr. Sojo came from. Rumor was that he was an old military researcher gone bad. Others that he was fired from a private clinic for malpractice or addiction. Some said he wasn’t a doctor at all, just a quack. But whoever he was or wasn’t, every Synth junkie knew his name.
“Wassup, doc?” Markus said, extending his hand.
Dr. Sojo’s fingers were warm from the coffee cup. It wasn’t even winter yet, but he dressed like an Eskimo. Actually, Dr. Sojo was always cold.
“Business, as usual.”
The Doctor sipped his coffee and looked around, checking out the crowd.
“Your place or mine?”
Markus smiled at the usual joke.
“Yours, of course.”
Dr. Sojo stood up, towering over the table like a sequoia tree, slapped his large thighs and snorted.
“Let’s go,” he said.
*
Dr. Sojo’s apartment was a crummy two-room NoCred place, crowded with bookshelves, weird art on the walls and an impressive vinyl punk rock collection. The kitchen was a mess, with a filled-up garbage can, a clogged sink in which pale gray water reflected the weak light-bulb, dirty paper plates and stained polystyrene cups heaped on the table. A smell of incense filled the visitor’s nose as soon as he stepped in, acrid but not completely unpleasant. A large couch covered with a red and pink Indian rug occupied much of the sitting-room, with a small copper coffee-table and two leather-covered Arab stools. How the bedroom was arranged—hidden behind an Islamic Jihad flag used as a curtain—was a mystery to Markus.
“Take a seat,” Dr. Sojo said, turning on his cranky old stereo and lowering the dusty pick-up onto a vinyl album.
Music crashed into the room and the Doctor turned it down.
“Had a party with a lady friend of mine yesterday,” he explained. “Forgot to turn the volume back down afterwards.”
Markus sat down on one of the comfortable Arab stools that sighed under his weight. With Synth he could turn this dump into an Oriental palace, if he wished, but the color enhancement worked just fine for now.
Dr. Sojo sat on the sofa without removing his parka.
“I read in the paper the other day that they found a spot in space where there isn’t a single star,” he said, unzipping the top of his coat.
“Gloomy,” Markus said.
“Think so? I thought it was kind of cool. No stars, man. Think of that.”
“Complete darkness. Gloomy.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“What’s your way?”
Dr. Sojo searched in his deep pocket and found a crumpled cigarette pack. Marcus accepted one and they sat silent for a few moments, enjoying cancer chemicals, abnormal children and a painful death.
“My way is that we don’t know shit about nothing.”
They laughed.
“What can I get you?” Dr. Sojo finally asked.
The ritual question. Two years they’d known each other. Synth turned Dr. Sojo into a younger version. Ritual question. Wonderful verbal key.
“The usual.”
“Didn’t you come two weeks ago?”
Markus nodded.
“Aren’t you pushing the envelope, son?”
“What do you care? I’ve got the money. I’m still Cred.”
Dr. Sojo frowned behind his thick glasses, and squeezed the tip of his nose between his thumb and index finger.
“I like our conversations. I would miss them if you were locked up at Kronborg.”
Kronborg was the psychiatric hospital. Markus shrugged.
“It’s my fucking brain. I can do what I want with it. Been under a lot of stress recently. Need the recreation.”
Dr. Sojo killed the cigarette in the ashtray. The music was harmonic chaos in the background. Synth began to unfold the CBGB 1979. Markus stopped it, wanting to focus.
“Yes, but you’re going where no brain has gone before.”
“You’re a fucking weird drug dealer, you know that?”
Dr. Sojo smiled and settled back on the couch.
“Yes, I know that. I’m just warning you, that’s all. It’s still a relatively new drug. All possible experiences have not been recorded.”
“Like the big black hole in the sky.”
“Like the big black hole in the sky.”
Markus crushed his own cigarette.
“It’s okay, man. I’m an astronaut. You got the stuff?”
“Sure.”
*
The subway doors closed and he sat in the near empty car. Rush hour had subsided. A quiet place. His fingers played with the cellophane package warming inside his pocket. 28 beads, normally a month. Now two weeks. Less if he could. If he dared. If he had the money. Synth sent him a row of random numbers. Yes, he could play the lottery. But would he still use Synth if he was Cash? The thought lingered, threatening. 28 beads, the rosary of addiction.
Two. Curtains
The apartment welcomed Markus like a dying widow. Synth turned it into a 60s Danish Design loft. Much better. Suited the loneliness. Dashing. Perfect. “Anyone for a gin and tonic?” The party was just wild, man. All these chicks with pointy chests. Dangerous bras. Tight pants showing panty lines. Rock ‘n’ roll full blast play loud recorded in stereo for your listening pleasure. A couple of guests hung around the buffet, smoking weed and chatting, plastic glass in hand. Plastic phantastic. The colored lights gave words strange shadows. Markus undressed, throwing his jacket, shirt and tie on the sofa. A girl giggled.
*
Markus sat in front of his computer, naked. The anklet shone darkly on the white skin. The Synth party had been wild, although he couldn’t remember things clearly. The apartment was still arranged in its 60s style, but the people had disappeared. Fine for now. He clicked on the mouse and his avatar took a few steps in Erewhon®, the cyberspace city where “everyone is free to develop in any way they choose.”
The site had appeared a few years ago and had been an instant success, partly because it was free and partly because the media had immediately put their spotlights on it, anxious to promote something “extraordinary” in this very ordinary life.
Markus had been asked by the Viborg Security Center to monitor Erewhon® at first, just to check that everything was legit and then to protect it from hackers, pirates and desperados, because big corporations had sensed a profitable market and had moved in.
Only Cash and Credits were allowed. NoCreds couldn’t log in. And Credits had to obtain their bank’s permission in order to purchase. Nonetheless Erewhon® was a fantasy that relieved people of their daily problems. The site was divided into regions, from the normal shopping mall to the exclusive, restricted VIP areas.
The official purpose was fun and business, in equal measure. Unofficially, it was mainly business, of course.
The whole thing was like a gigantic carnival, with virtual identities. And you could do anything—fly, drive a racing car, flirt, sleep in a castle, join a virtual war . . . Some things were expensive, some things were free. Like in real life. Except that it wasn’t. Maybe that was the ultimate thrill. A legal drug of sorts. Good, clean, fun.
Markus’s avatar strolled the main plaza, which looked like Times Square, with its huge neon billboards and 3D advertisements. It was night now and there was a light drizzle. The time and weather were tuned to Viborg City.
He looked around. There were banks, were you could actually open accounts, a couple of energy company offices, numerous mobile phone stores, two movie theatres showing the latest blockbusters, four music stores, one bookstore, an army recruiting office—if you wanted to join in a war of your choice. The Crusades, the Seven Warring Kingdoms, Napoleon, World Wars One and Two, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, the Southeast China Campaigns, they were all there.
He had tried the Napoleonic wars. The Egyptian Campaign. Impressive. He had been in the French artillery. A massacre, they had performed. Thrilling. Camels blown to pieces. Quite a show.
He had been killed very fast, though. Short lived fun.
Still, the uniforms had been fabulous. Not to mention the Pyramids and the Sphinx, in the distance.
When he finally spotted her, she was sitting on a bench, right by the entrance to the subway. The most beautiful cars passed her but she didn’t seem to notice, although he did.
She had chosen an eighteenth century dress.
It almost matched his nineteenth century English naval officer suit.
She waved as she spotted him, but didn’t stand up.
“Hello there, Gloria!” he said. “Wonderful weather tonight.”
She smiled as he sat next to her.
“At least we can’t feel the drops. That’s a plus.”
“That’s Erewhon®.”
He studied her face. She had cut her black hair short and her blue eyes wore no makeup. She looked strangely calm and beautiful.
Gloria. His only serious flirt in five years. Only virtual, of course, but it made things easier. The masks were a protection against lies. The avoidance of eye contact. The queasiness in the bottom of the stomach. The phone numbers erased in the contact list. What do you do for a living? Are you Cash or Credit? Do you love children? Nothing like that with Gloria. She was a wonderful reminder of his loneliness. He had often asked Synth to recreate her in various erotic fantasies. Her avatar had the perfect body. Neither too fat or too thin. It was very realistic actually, quite different from most of the Barbie dolls you could see strolling around. He had himself chosen a Mulatto avatar, with green eyes. Why? Why not? She had never commented on that. And why should she? She was Gloria. She didn’t care. That’s why he liked her.
They sat next to each other, in silence, their shoulders slightly touching. Thanks to Synth he could feel her warmth through the fabric.
If I could only read thoughts. With Synth, maybe. He tried. Saw only code lines. Jumbled. Meaningless, like a madman’s alphabet.
“So,” he finally said. “What do you want to do? A movie? They’re showing Elric at the Kino.”
From the way she shook her head, Markus knew something was wrong. She wasn’t the usual Gloria, although he was his usual sorry self.
“We won’t be seeing each other any more, Orlando.”
The news took time to connect, because Synth was screening for bad emotions. Suddenly he could feel the heavy cold raindrops on his shoulders. Suddenly he remembered he was sitting naked in front of his computer.
“How do you mean?” he asked, looking at her sad face.
“I’m getting married,” she said, not looking at him.
Synth scrambled to protect him. Markus denied.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, as much to himself as to her.
She didn’t move, didn’t look at him.
Markus was really freezing now.
“Why?” he finally asked, feeling stupid.
“My fiancé—he wants me all to himself. I told him about this place, about you. It wasn’t a good idea.”
“This sounds like the start of a nineteenth century melodrama, Gloria.”
She didn’t answer, instead her pixels floated around as if propelled by a strange wind.
“I’m going to miss our conversations,” he said, thinking he would be missing much more than that.
“I don’t want to stop coming here, but I have to. I have no choice. Maybe after the marriage and all, I can come back. Maybe he’ll understand. But he’s very conservative. You know the type.”
Markus didn’t, but nodded all the same.
The whole situation seemed completely ridiculous—two cartoon characters saying goodbye to each other—but it hurt all the same. He remembered all the good times their avatars had shared and Synth began to overlay memories like in a beautiful film. The conversations. The movies. The walks in Erewhon®’s parks and open spaces. It was corny, but right now corniness was perfect. A refuge. A good way to keep from crying like a moron.
Gloria stood up and abruptly disappeared. It was the first time she had ever left without a goodbye, a kiss or a wave of the hand. Markus stared at the depressingly real emptiness of the virtual bench.
*
The night welcomed him again. It wasn’t surprised. It was accustomed to his routines by now.
I must find a refuge. My heart needs a golden cradle. Its crown has been tipped and I need to repair my orb.
Alcohol whispered through the neon signs. Familiar notes, like a distant melody, a flute in the mountains. He couldn’t stay home. He hadn’t felt so alone in a long, long time. In a country far, far away. Synth produced mirages of distant cities. Markus wanted sunshine. He got Samarqand, with its beautiful golden walls. The vision was so striking he had to stop and contemplate the majestic glass buildings reflecting the sun in every direction.
Samarqand.
The Evil Empire, along with Ur, Persepolis, Palenque and Shanghai City.
He wondered why Synth had chosen Samarqand for him. It came from deep down inside him, no doubt. Subconscious fears and desires, all rolled into one. Perfect image. Or was it a metaphor? With Synth it was impossible to know. Always the obscure poet.
Samarqand.
He stayed a while longer, trying to think what he would have done if this hadn’t been a mirage. Walked into the city, visited the famous Temudjin mausoleum, drank mint tea. A subtle warm and sweet taste filled his mouth, drowning his tongue in saliva.
Tourism.
Not for him, any more. The ankle bracelet weighed nothing but pressed down his life like a sixteen ton safe. Mobility: the radius of Viborg City. Period.
What period?
What period would you like to live in?
Synth, the eternal joker.
Markus stopped at the corner of Himmerlandsgade. Gloria’s virtual face continued to haunt him. In love with an avatar. How ridiculous. But the last ten years had been tough, emotionally. Karen had never contacted him and he had been unable to locate her.
Markus quickly realized it was hard to date wearing a security anklet. Most girls distrusted him immediately, especially when he wouldn’t tell them why he was wearing it. He couldn’t. He had signed papers. Couldn’t disclose his job either. Otherwise, he would go back to jail for life. That was what you got for hacking into military satellites. Especially during a war. He was lucky not to have been condemned to death. That’s what his lawyer had told him, after the trial. Markus hadn’t thought about that. And he was sure neither Ole or Nick had. Youth. Bad craziness. Idiocy. Politics. Blindfold.
Metal Thunder Operation.
Hacking into war satellites, to render them useless.
It made the Potemkin Crew famous overnight.
It was also the beginning of their hell. The five satellites had self-destructed. Billions of dollars vaporized. Man-made supernova. Synth stirred at the reference, illuminating the sky.
He still didn’t know how the police had tracked him down. Karen screaming in the bathroom. It had only taken them a few days . . .
Then they’d had their psychological fun with him and when they told him Karen would get the same treatment, as an “accessory to plotting against the state,” he had given the others’ names. As simple as that.
An accessory. Indeed. She hated computers. She considered them socially dangerous and emotionally disturbing. Her father had been a programmer for some high-tech corporation. A cold, distant man who only warmed up when he talked about zeroes and ones. Never a kiss or a hug. Only his back visible in his study, his back turned on his wife and daughter, his face eaten by the screen. His death was a relief. Stupid aneurism of the brain. Of course? Of course. Wires of the body gone bad. Karen’s mother put the computer into the garbage can, to the dismay of the corporation. Apparently he had been working on ground-breaking projects and they wanted the hard-disk. They even offered money. Her mother told them to go to hell or go search the city’s garbage dump. Ground-breaking, maybe. Heart-breaking, that was for sure. So Karen hated computers. But she loved him anyway. And he’d put her through this ordeal—because of computers. Again.
Now he was free—working for Sørensen under an assumed name—and the others were in jail for the next thirty years.
A traitor, just like in any classic story.
Congratulations, you’ve been added as a character.
Markus closed his eyes in self-disgust and shivered in the cold night. He buried his hands in the pockets of his vest, opened his eyes again and moved on. Neon billboards decorated the streets, announcing Christmas. Viborg City would thrive soon, all wrapped up in shimmering paper.
Another reason to feel lonely.
He remembered why he was out. Depression. Looking for a friend in this indifferent city. He thought about Dr. Sojo, but he’d already seen him today and he didn’t want to make the man suspicious. He knew how paranoid Dr. Sojo was—and with reason. Markus thought about the pills hidden in a legit medicine bottle.
A friend. Could he be so desperate?
Yes.
Yes, he certainly could.
Then Synth helped him. It showed him a beautiful library, with hundreds of books crammed onto shelves. The sun shone through a glass roof, like a golden waterfall. The library looked ancient or middle European. Old men peered closely at titles—the leathery skin of their noses merging with leather spines—or leafed through books silently, half-hidden in the shadows.
That was why he loved Synth so much. It could really find the perfect image hidden deep in the subconscious and help you understand things from a different perspective.
Yes, books were definitely friends. Like music. But he needed the weight of a good book in his hands now. Right now. He wasn’t far away from Books and Wonders, the cultural superstore, but he knew what downloads they had in stock. More precisely, he knew what they didn’t have.
They only carried bestsellers and classics with the academic seal of approval, not real literature.
No freaky, accidental, strangely assembled narrations.
Only well groomed stories, to please the majority of readers.
Not the stuff he liked, in any case.
Viborg City cared for its citizens. They shouldn’t read n’importe quoi.
Some days Markus was tempted to throw away his PersoReader—he hadn’t downloaded a single good book in years. Books and Wonders and its rival, Beautiful Pages carried the same titles. Exactly. Democracy at its best. The only difference was the title being promoted that month.