MSTing: HELIOPOLIS (2/5)
a.ca...@genie.com
> By unwritten agreement,
Crow: --of Major League Baseball.
>the two younger sisters -- his only siblings -- had made the bedroom their
>preserve,
Tom: What, did they have elk wandering around or something?
>and they had stocked it with their mementos and their scent,
Mike: "Stocked it with their scent"? Makes it sound like they're bottling
the stuff and selling it for seventy dollars an ounce.
Crow: "YAWN -- the essence of a Mentech character. Available at Bullock's."
>leaving only
Tom: --the great smell of Brut!
>the small area containing his bed as his own. The thought of his small
>"home" brought back memories of a grimy, dingy feeling that haunted him in
>that cluttered space.
Mike: Maybe he should've considered washing his sheets once in a while.
>About the only time he felt clean was when he swam in the salt ocean and
>the brine abraded his oily skin.
Tom: He should be thankful he doesn't have that dreaded "combination skin."
That's just the worst!
Crow: He only feels clean when he swims in the ocean? Yecch! Your scalp
turns into a salt lick, you get sand stuck up every crevice... and that's
not even counting the medical waste!
>
> The Dreamer
Tom: Hey! I thought we agreed to cut that out!
>regarded himself in the sharp-edged porthole in the small blue room.
Mike: "Wh-- since when do I look like Scott Bakula?!"
>He wasn't really an amnesiac, he thought, but he remembered only certain
>things, selectively. He knew his name was Daniel.
Crow: "I... I know my first name is Steven!"
>He mouthed the word to himself. =Daniel=. He didn't like it; it required
>too much movement of the tongue.
Tom: He preferred the name "Ehhhh."
>Had he liked it when it was natural to him, he wondered, or had he simply
>never thought about it? Daniel did not know. Or at least he could not
>remember.
Mike: But if he's anything like the guy in the other story, I'm betting on
innate stupidity.
> Unexpectedly, Daniel remembered one day with burning clarity, when
>he had lain on the beach and stared up at the curved arc of the sky. At the
>very top, as far up as he could see, there was a definite metallic shimmer;
>it was shield, the
Crow: --Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law-enforcement
Division.
>spherical structure that enclosed Heliopolis.
Tom: But... Heliopolis is in Egypt! Shouldn't that be a pyramidical
structure?
>As he watched, thin pieces of it would peel off, curling up instantly into
>fine silver bubbles,
Mike: Don Ho must love this place.
>and like the fizz in carbonated water they would vanish into the sun,
Crow: Umm... fizz doesn't do that.
>even as solar-driven generators replenished the spent material.
> Daniel remembered the daylight, the glorious golden fire that shone
>through it in all directions, diffused from the sun that literally engulfed
>the city. Daniel remembered having been hypnotized by the light on this
>day,
Tom: --and running around clucking like a chicken all afternoon.
>an ancient day he remembered among all of the others for some obscure reason
>he would probably never fathom -- but soon this static memory faded into
>another, more recent and less mysterious.
Tom: That'll have to wait. We gotta go.
[1...2...3...4...5...6...]
[Purple light flashes.]
Mike: Hey, check it out! Sensors are picking up another satellite! This
must be one of the other projects Dr. F. was talking about! [hits button]
[Hexfield viewscreen opens to reveal... Mike, Tom, and Crow.]
Crow: Hey! It's us!
Mike: Hi. We're the crew of the Satellite of Love. Dr. Clayton Forrester
stuck us up here to inflict painful experiments on us.
SOP-Mike: Sounds familiar! [revs up chainsaw] We're the Satellite of Peace!
We test weapons of mass destruction on each other!
SOP-Crow [firing phaser at SOP-Tom, who explodes]: Rahrr! Eat hot laser,
hydrant-boy!
SOP-Mike: Now =you= taste the bite of my screaming blade, beak-head!
[plunges chainsaw into Crow's abdomen]
Mike: Umm... we'll get back to you guys. [closes hexfield viewscreen]
Tom: It's J. Neil Schulman's dream come true...
[Lights flash]
All: WE'VE GOT HELIOPOLIS SIGN!
[6...5...4...3...2...1...]
> Again: he laid his head back on his knuckle-clasped hands
Mike: Gee, that's a rather words-awkwardly-arranged phrasing.
>and watched the yellow sky.
Tom [singing]: o/~ Don't you eat that yellow sky... o/~
>The ocean sprayed lightly on his feet and, as he glanced to the right, he
>saw a girl some distance away quickly look away from him, embarrassed.
Mike [falsetto]: "I can't believe I got caught staring at George F. Will!"
>She was sitting with a friend on a public bench
Tom: Her friend kept going on about how life was like a box of chocolates...
>farther up the beach, pretending to listen to whatever it was her watery
>companion
Crow: Her "watery companion"? What, is she talking to a nereid?
>was bubbling over about with such exaggerated gestures.
Mike [flat]: These young female humans are so perplexing.
>Her eyes had wandered...
Crow: They'd popped right out of her sockets and gone for a stroll.
>and found Daniel. He smiled to himself. For some unidentified reason, he
>felt extremely flattered that he should be the illicit object of her
>attention.
Tom: Sheesh! If he were any more similar to the guy in the last story he'd
be splattered over the dashboard of a truck.
> Feeling his chin weigh heavily against his chest,
Crow: Hey, he's not George F. Will after all! He's Jay Leno!
>he lowered his head again, even if it meant not looking at the girl. With
>his eyes he followed the pleasant silver bubbles to their expiration
Mike: Best Before 11/3/91.
>far above and he breathed the moist salt air.
> Daniel turned to look at the girl and he caught her staring at him
>a second time.
Crow: It's Neal's trademark glance-by-glance interplay! Thrill to the action
as various characters look at each other and occasionally smile!
>This time he smiled at her
Crow: See? SEE??
>(although by that point she had turned aside and was trying to look
>somewhere else)
Tom: Hey, if George F. Will were giving =me= a creepy smile I'd be trying to
look away too!
>and then he tried to relax again. But he was restless. He glanced left
>and right once more, looking for people he knew; many times Daniel would
>come to the beach in search of company.
Crow: But now all the companies had been bought up by Disney.
>Friends were always his for the taking, so like any customer assessing a
>cheap commodity, he took few.
Mike: Here to explain is Channel Four's economics correspondent, Irving R.
Levine.
>Friends swam around him, lapped at his feet, and then moved on.
Tom: I know what you mean. Seems like you can't go anywhere these days
without running into that Jennifer Aniston.
Crow: You're telling me! You turn on the TV and every single channel, it's
Lisa Kudrow!
>He scanned the curve of the ocean
All: --with RADAR!
>as far as he could see -- but he did not recognize anyone.
> Feeling distracted, he glanced over at the girl and saw that her
>friend had gone off
Tom: --like a firecracker. Spontaneous human combustion!
>for a while. While she was looking elsewhere, he watched her.
Mike: Who wrote this scene, Laura Mulvey?
>She was not at ease; she sat warily, as if she were guarding her and her
>friend's space in unfamiliar territory.
Tom: She was never the same after she got back from Nam.
>Without even thinking about it, she bobbed
Crow: --for apples. She thought it might take her mind off things.
>one ankle up and down, anxiously waiting.
Mike [falsetto]: "Do I think he will come? Yes, I am sure of it."
>There was nothing in particular, Daniel decided, that made her to her look
>attractive,
Crow: But then, most girls her age have low self-esteem.
>but he was feeling whimsical and somehow, right at that moment...
> Huskily lifting himself off the sand,
Tom: Okay, let's see. He looks more or less like George F. Will, with Jay
Leno's chin, and he weighs 400 pounds.
>he sauntered over in the general direction of the girl, who tried not to
>notice his approach. He walked past her as if he was not there, but stopped
>just after he passed her. He waited for a while.
Tom [Daniel]: "Do I think I will come? Yes, I am sure of it."
Mike: That's fourteen waiting scenes down, 59,588 to go.
>Then, unconsciously taking a deep breath,
Crow: --he slumped to the ground. He'd passed out.
>he tapped her on the shoulder.
All: Bad touch!
>She turned around and as she saw him, a rush of emotions crossed her face.
Mike: Disgust, revulsion, nausea, dismay...
> "Hi-" he extended his hand smoothly. "I'm Daniel."
Crow: He named his hand Daniel?
Tom: Yup! He drew in the eyes and lipstick and everything. "Alright?"
"Sawright." "Alright?" "Sawright."
>She accepted his hand with great suprise. Her handshake was cautious, but
>as such, rather elegant.
Mike: Note to self: elegance = caution.
Tom: Nothing shows grace and discrimination like looking both ways before
crossing the street.
> "Oh, hi," she said, looking at him, unsure of what to say or do.
>Daniel smiled agreeably.
> "You have a nice name," he said.
> "Oh..." she floundered, and then realized that, in fact, she had not
>given her name.
Crow: Wh-- that lovable scamp's done it again!
Mike: This relationship is on a collision course with wackiness!
> "I'm so sorry," (she was intensely on nerves now)
Tom: This whole story is getting intensely on my nerves.
>"I'm Aurora." He smiled again, and involuntarily she smiled back.
Mike: She meant to scowl at him, but he's controlling her mind.
> "As I said, it is a nice name," Daniel said. "So where do you go to
>school, Aurora?"
Crow [Daniel]: "I've been scoping out the junior highs for weeks now but I
don't recognize you!"
> "4-N.F.," she responded automatically
Crow: Anyone want to take a crack at figuring out what these codes mean?
Mike: Nope.
Tom: I'm pretty sure they're just there to be science-fiction-y. Aurora's
probably in seventh grade or so, and Daniel's a senior with five periods of
auto shop.
>-- chagrined, but on second thought not exactly suprised,
Mike: Even if she were surprised, she wouldn't be exactly suprised.
>that he naturally assumed her to be still of school age. "And you?" she
>said brightly.
> "3-N.Q.," he answered.
Crow: Hey, Mike, what's 1-N.Q. plus 2-N.Q.?
Mike: 3-N.Q., I guess.
Crow: You're welcome! [pause] No, wait, that's not right.
Tom: That was wrong on several levels, Crow.
>He looked her over gently.
Crow: Hey, that's how I like my eggs!
>She had the potential to look pretty, but she was doing it all the wrong
>way;
Tom: Maybe she should stop smearing that butterscotch pudding all over her
face.
>a nervous tension hung in the air about her. There was a pause.
> "I noticed you were looking over my way," he said, with a gesture of
>inconsequence.
Mike: If it doesn't matter, Neal doesn't have to think of what it would be.
>Aurora could only smile a little and blush.
Crow: Someone needs to get this kid on a women's lib IV. Stat!
> "Well," she began--
> "Would you like to walk along the beach?" he interrupted, not
>interested in having her invent a pretext.
Tom: Umm... ouch.
> "Yes," she said, and quite abruptly stood. =That was interesting=,
>Daniel thought
Mike: Uh, Daniel, people stand up all the time.
Crow [hick]: "Them staindin' fokes is FAS-sinatin'!"
>as he pointed toward the water's edge and allowed her to lead the way. He
>liked the way she walked: it was, he thought mutely, graceful. Strong
>emotion surged through him and he wanted to touch her; he felt like he was
>in the heat.
Crow: He's standing in the middle of the frigging sun! Of =course= he's in
the heat!
>As they tread alongside the shore, he nonchalantly took her hand in his.
>Through the contact he could feel her initial suprise, but also, later, a
>growing pleasure.
Crow: Shouldn't =he= be the one with the growing pl--
Mike: You're welcome.
Crow: Hey, that wasn't very nice.
>The wet sand crunched under his feet
Tom: Or maybe that was just all the broken beer bottles.
>and it oozed cooly between his toes as he walked through the golden sunlight
>sparkling gloriously everywhere. Sounds of the breaking waves shattered in
>his ears and the hissing water slithered back into the ocean. Glass...
>Daniel squeezed her hand gently.
Crow: Wait a minute! Can we back up for a second?
Mike: Let's not.
Crow: But... look at that bit about the glass! What does glass have to do
with anything?
Mike: I think it's supposed to be a sound effect. Neal must've hired a
foley artist.
> "So tell me about yourself," he said.
Crow [Daniel]: "If I were a popsicle, what would you do to me?"
>And she did. Aurora was sixteen years old. Aurora had an older brother,
>twenty-two years old. Aurora lived with her parents
Tom: Forty-eight years old.
>in an apartment
Tom: Fifty-two years old.
>and liked to get away. Aurora liked to read novels,
Tom: Two hundred seventy-seven years old.
>liked to watch movies,
Tom: One hundred one years old.
>liked just walking along the beach
Tom: Several million years old.
>-- and so on. Daniel smiled encouragingly, listening attentively to
>everything as her voice gradually grew in confidence, but in truth, none of
>these incidental details interested him in the slightest.
Crow: He's a sensitive 90's guy. 1690's.
Mike: It's bad enough to write characters that bore the audience, but when
they bore each =other= you know you've got problems.
> "Are you involved with anyone?" he asked, at length.
Tom: Yeah, about five words of length.
> "Um..." Aurora fumbled.
Crow [announcer]: "And the Packers recover on the 35!"
>Daniel knew she would have given a wobbly answer had not his eyes arrested
>her
Mike: He's the one putting the moves on the underage girl! If someone's
going to get arrested around here it ought to be him.
>at the moment she was about to speak, locking her jaw in place
Tom: Oh, it's the new JawClub.
Crow: Now available in designer colors!
>so that only a single word could drop out.
> "No:" the word fell meekly to the sand.
Mike: I saw that happen once on "Sesame Street". Big white letters
plopping to the ground.
Tom: I know they're in the middle of the sun, but if the gravity isn't
crushing the people, how can it affect the transmission of sound?
Mike: I dunno. Maybe Big Bird'll show up and we can ask him.
> "I, too, am unattached," Daniel said with a light romantic flourish,
Crow: He'd be a big hit down at the Renaissance Faire.
Tom: Phony antiquated language, groping teenage girls... yeah, that's about
right.
>although this was a lie.
Mike: Someday Neal's going to try to write a protagonist who isn't totally
reprehensible and his head'll explode.
>"Lucky us," he added. At this moment, he figured, she was probably
>considering herself very lucky.
Tom: "Who could resist some freshly-brewed =me=?"
>She timidly eyed the length of his body when she thought he wasn't looking.
>He quietly placed his arm around her shoulders and came
Crow: Wow. He's premature by a good couple hours at the very least! That's
got to be some kind of record!
>to a stop.
> "Yes?" she asked, suddenly uncertain again, as if his embrace were
>a question.
Tom: Then why did =she= ask a question?
Mike: Too much "Jeopardy".
>Daniel said nothing. He felt her shiver, ever so slightly. A touch -- why
>so significant? Daniel wondered.
Crow: Because it's a hell of a lot more than anything else that's ever
happened in one of these Mentech stories!
>He disengaged, asked her some meaningful question about herself to keep her
>occupied,
Mike: Great, busywork. He must be a sub.
Tom: "Describe your psyche. Give three examples."
>and they began walking again. To Aurora a touch was laden with
Crow: --spices from the Orient!
>meaning, but to Daniel it was merely an orchid sniffed sweetly.
Mike: What?
Crow: I wonder how many metaphors Neal came up with before settling on this
one.
Tom: "'To Daniel a touch was merely a well-groomed poodle.' Nah, that's not
it."
>He fingered the flower in his hands, wondering; he could pluck it from the
>ground or leave it be. Daniel watched it blow in the wind for a while
Tom [Daniel]: "Oh, excuse me." [zipping sound]
>as they talked.
> There is a certain innocence, he thought, a sense of joy and wonder
>that everyone is born with -- we wander like small children through a
>crystal shop, marvelling wide-eyed at everything.
Mike: No one appreciates fine glassware like a toddler.
>Too soon though, without even meaning to, we hurt someone, and then we have
>to watch them cry.
Crow: Neal still has lunch money issues.
>We can only stand there, watching, helpless. Uncertain for the first time,
>we ask ourselves, "Was what I did right?"
Mike: If Neal had asked himself that after writing this story we wouldn't be
going through this experiment.
Crow: That's assuming he'd answer it right.
>and "What should I do now?"
Tom: Umm... have a sandwich?
>This is our first leap of self-analysis, the first time our will falters.
>Then like a disease this doubt spreads uncontrollably, draining all the
>happiness from the world.
Crow: I get the feeling this guy owns more than one Nine Inch Nails CD.
> I have a black pool, Daniel thought,
Mike: Well, just add some more chlorine.
>hidden deep underground. I never show it to anyone; I am jealous of it
>because it is mine.
Tom: There are many like it, but this one is... actually, there aren't
really all that many like it.
>But once in a while, just once, I long to take someone there and let that
>naive soul see its own reflections in the water.
Mike: "Maybe I'll try one of those time share things."
>Then I dare them to reproach me for anything.
> "You are even more beautiful than your name, Aurora," Daniel told
>her,
Crow: How about cheesy pick-up lines? Can we reproach him for that?
>adjusting a errant lock of her hair as they stepped along the shoreline.
>Had she said that to him, he would have laughed at it,
Tom: --because his name's not Aurora.
>but at that moment she was affected by him too strongly to notice. Such
>power, Daniel thought.
> She blushed, of course. Her face was white enough that any color
>made it seem rosy.
Crow: Even green?
>"Oh, thanks... you are too, Daniel," she said. They walked for a while
>longer in silence.
> "I'm glad I met you," Daniel said, biting his tongue because he
>knew he had said it badly, "but I have to go now... Well," he seemed to
>reconsider, "at least soon."
Mike [falsetto]: "Could you make it now? You're creeping me out!"
>She looked crestfallen anyway. He smiled his straight white smile.
Tom [deep]: "I'm real white and reeeeeal straight!"
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[Continued in part 3]