MSTing: HELIOPOLIS (4/5)
a.ca...@genie.com
>He let =that= mystery be for now. The Dreamer returned to the task of
>remembering. He found no word or image which he could grasp with certainty,
Tom: So he'll just shout the first thing that comes to mind? Is that it?
>but there was something... he listened again to be sure. Yes, there it was.
Crow: That's nice. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE??
>Deep, resonant, mysterious -- a humming in the darkness. Where was it
>coming from?
Mike: Umm... Winnipeg?
>The Dreamer tried, but could not quite locate the source of the strange,
>subdued sound.
Tom: Neal's trying to build this up, but I'm sure it's probably just someone
in the next apartment playing the Portishead album.
>At last, in a moment of inspiration, he realized that it was not the
>=source= of the sound he required at all. It was the sound itself.
>Gingerly, he allowed himself be drawn down into the sound, and suddenly
>like a damburst it exploded.
Crow: Ah, the wonders of a $29 fuzzbox.
Mike: It's that grunge music the kids are so nutty about.
>The sound rushed over him, erupting into chaos, a white noise like
>whitewater
Crow: Oh, no, he's having a recovered memory about buying land with James
McDougal!
>tumbling over cataracts, rushing into being.
>
> The incoherent jumble of voices grew louder as the mass of students
>approached.
Tom: Oh, they're Pentecostals.
>School 4-N.F. was letting out and Daniel was at the edge of its central
>courtyard, waiting, leaning against one of the smooth round columns that
>ringed the arena. His hands hung limp
Crow: In dramatic contrast to his--
Mike: You're welcome.
>and restless at his sides; he busied himself tapping out a rhythm with his
>foot.
Tom: I just can't get enough of them dope beats.
>The noise continued to swell until, suddenly, it engulfed him.
> The masses of people swarmed past Daniel, flooding through the
>collonade
Crow: Sort of like lemonade, only much scarier.
Mike: Not quite as scary as Beefmato, though.
>in criss-crossing rivulets that ultimately disgorged into the streets
>beyond.
Tom: That's odd. I figured that most of the disgorging would be taking
place in the cafeteria.
>Drawing himself up to his full height,
Mike: All this time he's been passing himself off as 3'6".
>Daniel scanned the crowd erratically.
Crow: Much like a disgruntled postal worker moments before he reaches for
his semi-automatic.
>His eyes darted mercilessly in and out of the crowd,
Tom: --elbowing people in the ribs, shoving them to the ground.
>searching for Aurora or her friends. Although he would not be able to
>recognize Aurora's friends, he figured that they would almost certainly
>have seen pictures of him.
Mike: Yeah, at the post office.
> Eventually he spotted a group of people gesturing in his direction
Crow: I've been gesturing in his direction for ages now. Doesn't help.
>who apparently thought they might know him.
Mike: "Hey, isn't that George F. Will?"
>When they looked across to Daniel for some confirmation, he offered them
>a faint twitch of a smile. They approached.
Tom: In Delta-Victor-Niner formation.
> "Do you know Aurora?" a bolder member of the group asked.
> "Yes," Daniel grinned, relaxing, releasing tension,
Crow: He's having his own private aromatherapy session as they speak.
>"but I haven't for long -- only a couple of weeks." He made a show of
>examining them.
Mike: --and put it in the CBS prime-time lineup.
>"You must be her friends:" he said at length,
Tom: Yeah, about five words of length.
Crow: Too bad they weren't her enemies. I'd have liked to see him admit he
knows her and immediately receive a sound pummeling.
Mike: I wouldn't mind seeing him receive a sound pummeling in any context.
>"she's shown me some pictures," he lied. They were obviously pleased at
>this development.
Mike: I'd be pleased with any development. This plot's going nowhere.
> "Is she here today?" Daniel asked.
> "No, she left early," the first girl said with a slight hesitation,
>and there was some giggling in the background. Not a very convincing lie,
>Daniel thought to himself.
Tom: Yeah, you can easily get back on the fairway with a three-iron.
> "Do you go to school?" another girl asked. Daniel appraised her:
>average.
Crow: Would've been more but without a receipt he had to go with the
replacement cost rather than the original value of the item.
>"Yes," -- they were suprised -- "but not this one. I met Aurie on the
>beach." Some of the group were looking him over.
> "So am I all that you expected?" he teased. They laughed, and there
>were a few "yeah"'s mixed in with the
Tom: --scorn and derision?
>curiosity-filled laughter. Daniel stepped closer to the first girl --
> "Aurie's shown me some pictures, but I didn't get the names." He
>extended his hand to her, "I'm Daniel."
Crow: Alright?
Tow: Sawright.
> "Melisande," she shook his hand. She had quite attractive black
>hair and brown skin.
Mike: Neal makes a flailing attempt to rescue the readers' interest by
introducing an ethnic minority into the storyline. Let's watch as this
gambit fails miserably!
>He turned to the rest of the crowd.
> "And these are?" he asked Melisande, but waved to the entire group.
>She gave the name of each in turn.
Crow: And undoubtedly they were all very silly.
>"I'm glad to meet you all," he said, "I've heard about, I think," he paused
>as if in thought, "all of you. Or almost all of you. Well, I guess I'll
>be seeing you around," he closed. They good-byed him
Tom: While Neal verbed yet another noun. Can't he write a single sentence
without some annoying quirk?
Mike: You have to give him one thing -- at least for once the problem isn't
incompetence. Neal may mangle the language, but it's supposed to be arty
and stylish.
Tom: So was MANOS.
>and shuffled onward. Daniel watched them retreat for a while, thinking.
> "Wait," he called after them: "Melisande. Aurora told me something
>to tell you," he called,
Crow: Yeah, sure. "Five seconds ago I had no idea who you were, but I've
been entrusted with a very important message for you." Right.
>and Melisande strutted back. The others stopped where they were and moved
>forward a bit every so often as a pretense.
Mike: Pretty complicated blocking for extras.
> "Yes?" Melisande asked when she was close enough.
> "Actually," he whispered in a cool voice, "she didn't have a
>message.
Crow: *gasp* No, really? I was completely taken in!
Mike: It's Jean-Paul Sartre's answering machine. "There is no message.
There is no beep."
>I just wanted to talk to you privately -- you're obviously not just one of
>the croud,"
Tom: "For instance, Neal bothered to come up with a name for you! Sure,
it's a ridiculous one, but at least it's something!"
>she glanced at them down the way.
> "Oh," she said, and smiled.
> He reached into the pocket of his shirt (her eyes followed his hand
>all the way) and he drew out a small picture of himself
Mike: He carries around pictures of =himself=?
Crow: That'd be scary even if he =didn't= draw lipstick hearts around the
faces.
>with a number hastily scrawled on the back. Palming it to her so the others
>couldn't see, he leaned over to her ear and -- letting his masculine breath
>fall heavily on her shoulders -- whispered, "I'm free most of the time."
Mike: "The rest of the time I'm $4.99 the first minute, $2.99 each additional
minute."
> Her eyes lit up in suprise and wonder.
> "Aurora really is at school, right?" he asked, straightening up
>again. She grinned sheepishly and nodded, daring to glance at his body
>again.
Tom: Oh, ick. When it comes to buffalo shots Neal's almost as bad as
Coleman Francis.
>"Right," he said. Daniel ruffled his shirt.
Crow: As if he wasn't disco enough already.
>"Phew! It's hot here," he said, and proceeded to remove it.
All: NOOOOO!
Mike: This story was bad enough before the grotesque nudity.
Crow: It's George F. Will in a role that may surprise you!
Tom: "Hey, baby, now my pants are starting to chafe!"
>"I think you should go now," he said quietly through the shirt as he took
>it off.
Crow: You don't have to tell me twice! Let's get out of here!
Mike: Wish we could.
> "Yeah," she said, distracted, and it was only when he began to ball
>up the shirt -- when he gave her a sharp, jarring glance -- that she
>hurried to catch up to the crowd.
Crow: Hey, have you noticed that Neal tends to linger over the bodies of his
purportedly hunky if completely vacuous protagonists? I mean, when a guy
checks out a girl the description is perfunctory at best but when someone
checks out a guy the scene goes on, and on, and on...
Mike: What are you implying?
Crow: Well, either Neal is really impressed with himself or he's really
impressed with... someone else...
>Daniel was curious what kind of fiction she would make up,
Tom: Well, I can already tell you one thing: it'll be better than HELIOPOLIS.
>but she could probably pull it off, if she wanted to. And she wanted to.
Tom: You know what I want to do? Get out of here. Let's go.
[1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[Purple light flashes.]
Mike: Hey, it's yet another satellite!
Crow: Big shocker.
[Mike hits the button. Hexfield viewscreen opens. These doubles are all
wearing glasses and have pencils tucked behind their ears (or equivalent.)]
Mike: Hi. This is the Satellite of Love. And you are...?
SOT-Mike: This is the Satellite of Truth. Let me guess -- you're forced to
undergo some kind of regular ordeal?
Crow: Bing! We have a winner.
Mike: We have to read terrible, terrible stories. How about you?
[Awkward silence. SOT crew exchanges glances.]
SOT-Tom: We... have to =write= terrible, terrible stories.
SOT-Crow: We have implants in our brains that force us to write the most
wretched stories possible. For instance, mine makes me make ridiculous
spelling errors and won't let me write about anyone over the age of 13.
SOT-Tom: Mine makes me write stories where nothing ever happens, where the
characters have annoying banter while nothing is happening, and where every
couple of sentences I have to try some cutesy verbal trick, none of which
ever works.
SOT-Mike: And I have to write like an arrogant blowhard and plug myself
constantly while launching into delusional, paranoid rants and praising
crap in the most hyperbolic way possible.
SOT-Crow: Then we have to feed our stories into a machine and they get
sent... somewhere. We've come up with a device to reprogram the machine
but we can't use it from here.
Tom: Hey! Red Rover, Red Rover, send it on over!
[awkward pause]
SOT-Tom: That was really lame. I'll have to use it in my next opus.
Mike: Speaking of which...
[Lights flash]
All: WE'VE GOT HELIOPOLIS SIGN!
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
> In a few more minutes, the courtyard was mostly clear of fleeing
>students.
Mike: Yeah, this guy taking off his shirt probably would clear the room
pretty quick.
>A few people still trickled out of the buildings now and then, and as
>Daniel peered across the large courtyard,
Crow: EWWWWW! He was distasteful before, but this is just SICK!
Tom: Look again, Crow. He "peered" across the courtyard. "Peered".
Crow: Oh. Never mind.
>he saw that one of the laggards was Aurora. She was wearing a refined,
>crystal-embroidered tiara.
Mike: Ah, from the Liberace collection.
Crow: I'd've thought only the Rev. Al Sharpton could get away with such a
gaudy display.
>It was just jewelry, but it was unusual that she would wear a tiara and --
>Daniel looked at her more closely -- a matching bracelet and necklace.
Tom: So her delusion of being a crown princess is par for the course but her
ability to accessorize is cause for concern?
>Aurora was usually far too modest to adorn herself in such a fashion.
Mike: Jezebel of Phoenicia was usually far too modest to adorn herself in
such a fashion.
> Clearly she had been pleased with herself in the morning, yet the
>expression she now wore was heavy;
Tom: Sort of a microcosm of female adolescence in general.
Crow: So =you're= the one who stole my copy of REVIVING OPHELIA!
[awkard silence; Mike and Tom exchange glances]
Crow: Hey, it was on sale. Get off my back.
>her lips closed in a tight slit and she stared down at her feet as she
>walked across the pewter tiles.
Mike: Forget about plastics. Pewter's where the real money's going to be in
twenty years.
>Daniel's heart sunk a little when he saw her dejection. He concealed
>himself on the far side
Crow: --behind a cow and a poorly-drawn geek with glasses.
>of the column and waited, paitiently, for her to pass by. Eventually she
>did.
> "Oh, Aurie," he called sweetly. She whirled around to see him and
>gasped.
Tom: So some strange, vaguely seedy older guy picks her up on the beach, and
two weeks later shows up at her school in a state of undress. Do they not
=have= restraining orders here, or...?
> "Daniel!"
> "In the flesh," he said sideways.
Crow: *groan* What does =that= mean?
Mike: I think it's something like t
h
i
s
.
Crow: Oh. Hey, how'd you do that?
>"Come on," he said, motioning in the direction she had been walking, "let's
>go." He put his arm around her shoulders. "You look kind of down."
Mike: This guy's like one of those creepy junior high art teachers who come
up behind girls to "help them with their brushwork" and then take a look
down the front of their shirts.
Tom: Uhh... yeah. One of those.
> "Well, I was," she said. "So how did you get here so fast?"
Crow [Daniel]: "Oh, I've been scoping out the place since 7:45 this morning.
Missed my 'Growing Pains' reruns but what the hey!"
> "No last class," he said flatly
Mike: Leave out the "last" part and you've pretty much got him pegged.
>-- then shifting to a brighter tone: "let's go to the beach!"
Tom: Thanks for sharing, Gidget.
> "I -- I was going home," she wavered. Daniel shrugged
>uninquisitively, resuming his dull posture again.
Mike: Yes, by all means let's have some more dullness.
> "Whatever."
> "I mean, you can come too," she said quickly.
> "Sure," he smiled. "I haven't met your family yet," he added.
>Aurie was relieved by his accession.
Crow: --to the Spanish throne.
> "Good," she breathed. He leaned over and he nuzzled gently her
>cheek.
Tom: Neal constructed poorly that sentence.
>Daniel pretended not to notice her uneasiness with this familiarity.
Crow: Daniel's Dating Tip #214: "If she doesn't punch you in the face and
run away screaming, that means she likes it!"
>They walked to the telebooth and he led her inside.
Mike [Daniel]: "Hey, what's your calling card number? I don't have any
change on me."
>"Um..." Aurora's glanced at his fisted shirt.
Crow: Big deal, so've I.
Tom: "Fisted"? I refuse to read any story by someone who's into fisting.
Mike: I don't think that's it, Tom. I think he just means that his shirt's
still balled up in his fist and he just said it clunkily.
Tom: That's what they all say.
>He disengaged his arm and flapped his shirt to straighten it out before
>starting to put it on again. She averted her eyes as Daniel slipped it
>over his head.
> "Boulevard #311K," she addressed the booth.
Tom: Not ag-- oh, wait. Okay, this is one time I'll let the "addressed"
thing go.
>There was no motion at all. The door dissolved and the stepped out into a
>small alley adjoining the boulevard.
Crow: Wait, they have teleportation? Then how come Aurora was confused
about Daniel getting to her school so fast?
Mike: Neal didn't know they had teleportation then. He's just sort of
making this up as he goes along.
>By the time the reached it, Daniel had finished doing up the last buttons.
> "What number is it?" Daniel asked. Aurora began to walk down the
>street briskly.
Tom [falsetto, grumbling]: "Never a police officer when you need one park
in front of a hydrant and they're right there but go look for one and
suddenly they're all at the doughnut shop lousy pigs..."
> "This way, F40," she said without turning around. Daniel hastened
>to catch up with her.
> "What's wrong?" he asked. She shook her head; he took her hand in
>his and squeezed it gently.
All: [make bone-crunching noises]
> "Is it me?" She shook her head again.
> "It is," he prodded.
> "No, it's just-"
> "You're worried," he interjected.
Crow: Eww!
Mike: Eww? It's just an interjection! An interjection's always succeeded
by an exclamation point, or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong.
>She started to deny it, then smiled abashedly once and wouldn't look at him.
> "You're cute when you smile like that," he grinned.
> "Don't do that to me," she snapped.
All: [cheers and applause]
> "All right."
> They walked together quietly, and after a while, Aurora turned and
>led him into one of the buildings.
Tom: --then shoved him into a stairwell and ran to her =real= home.
>People were bustling around in it, moving in and around its corridors like
>rats caught in a maze.
Mike: Adding to this effect was the mysterious presence of huge piles of
cheese at random points in the hallways.
>Aurora and Daniel entered an elevator crammed with people ("Fifteen,"
Crow: Oh, it's the wacky guy who always announces how many people are in the
elevator! I love this character!
>Aurora instructed the elevator, which quickly acknowledged by illuminating
>the "15"-sign)
Mike: Oh, that's much easier than pushing a button. I love technology.
Tom: Me too. Sometimes I like to fill a room with CD players and laser
printers and dive through it like a porpoise.
>and it began to climb. The elevator shaft was an open shaft,
Tom: Shut yo mouth!
Crow: Hey, he's just talkin' 'bout the shaft.
>extending upward to the sky, and through the elevator's open skylight,
>the filtered sunlight fell.
Tom: Hey, I know this is taking place in the middle of the sun, but is there
any reason why? Couldn't this story just as easily be set in New Jersey?
Mike: Yeah, but who'd want to read a story called PASSAIC?
Crow: How about FASTER, PUSSYCAT! CRESSKILL!
> Daniel looked at Aurora, Aurora at Daniel.
Crow [childlike]: "I see Daniel and Aurora and Timmy and Bobby and Susie..."
>His plain layered hair seemed to catch the sunlight; the darker roots
>highlighted the lighter exterior, giving it contour and dimension.
Mike: He's got a Rachel!
Tom: Really? Sounds more like a Kato to me.
>She loved it.
Crow: Of course she did. You'll notice Neal hasn't said anything about =her=
hair...
>In the smae pure light, the helium crystals sewn in her tiara
Tom: Helium crystals? It takes 26 million atmospheres at four degrees
Kelvin just to get helium to liquefy!
Mike: So? You'll buy teleportation and solar habitats but not helium
crystals?
Tom: No... I just have a hard time accepting that they have teleportation
and solar habitats and helium crystals but that life is nonetheless
indistinguishable from that in Huntington Beach, California, circa 1986.
>glittered like a halo. A thin, ductile halo that could be bent and
>rewrought -- a strand of such fragility that Daniel ached to braid and
>twist it.
Crow [Beavis]: "Yeah! YEAH! I like to break stuff! Heh-heh heh-heh--"
>It made him itch.
Tom: Or maybe that was from eating all those graham crackers in bed.
>To avoid seeing it he
Mike: --gouged out his eyes?
>slid his gaze around the crowded elevator, observing the other people who
>were completely oblivious to him.
Crow: How I envy them.
> Upon its prompt arrival at the fifteenth storey,
Tom: Suddenly they're in the UK!
Mike: Gives a whole new meaning to "the sun never sets on the British
Empire."
>the elevator came to rest and the door abruptly shifted from a solid state
>to an unusual gaseous form
Crow: It's not that unusual. Happens to me every time I have the enchilada
platter down at Manuel's.
>that held its shape elastically, yet permitted complete permeability.
Tom: I hear they're trying to apply the same technology to lingerie.
>Aurora and Daniel exited into the awaiting corridor. Behind them, after
>they had gone, the supersaturated door recrystallized, and the crowded
>elevator continued its ascent.
Mike: The others had all pushed the button marked "UP AND OUT".
Crow: Wish we could.
[Commercials]
[Concluded in part 5]