53. Anesidora
According to Vesper, under intoxication, “AXXion, (or ex-Zion), means the City has left. Or in Ichabod’s case, the Glory has left,” he guffawed, “But what I really want to tell you is…JC’s signed a deal with Deity High.”
“I thought he was not going to sell at whatever price?”
“They assured him and his goddess, Ewala,” Vesper gestured, “that there would always be an original copy in pristine condition.”
“Might as well. You know how much kids adore him. Now they have the chance to fuck around his planet. Who knows, a genius, or geniuses, could be in the making.”
JC is chief architect and boss of a primeval planet that - up till recently - was under the radar of Syurga. As with all hype, word spreads, grapevine and viral marketing playing their part, and in less than the time it takes for the Sun’s rays to reach Earth, children and adults alike are mesmerized by this colourful world, which brightens up as if perpetually under the lure of UV lights. The unique, multi-hued fauna is relatively friendly, and the animals, once bonded, would take visitors for free rides through jungle and sky. Everything’s connected by a USB port that’s available on nearly every species, thus, networking all that’s hooked up with a global vibe of peace, love, harmony and joy.
Of course it’s popular with kids. Garish and plugged into a digital designer drug, they’re definitely ushering in an era of neo-hippiness. But JC is protective. He is aware over consumption will rape his raw, virgin world; so he sets quotas, boundaries, and he limits contact hours. This drove teenagers ballistic with raving madness; they could not get enough of its potent high, so troubles in Syurga escalated as the addicted devoured substitute substances of inferior properties, therefore affecting the young minds of divine offspring.
Put it this way, you don’t want unlimited power in the hands of underage demented druggies. The same reason the Lord God ejected Adam and Eve from the Garden after their eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil; no, you don’t get to eat from the Tree of Life when yer addicted to a degraded wisdom.
Enter Deity High, school for these omnipotent adolescents. “They invested in infrastructure,” Vesper revealed, “Cost them a bomb. But they had to. Father and mother gods were harassing the angelic hosts on payroll to educate god boys and girls. They had to strike a deal. JC was just playing cool. Some of the Kreators opined he’s a no-good sold-out shark, victimizing and exploiting further mayhem to push the price up north. Rocket high. No one knows what the final rate was, but Deity High had to buy a parallel dimensional portal specially encoded for JC’s world. Cost them a bomb,” he said again. “The software is compatible with most brands and products, including Jai-I’s specs,” he held up son of Jahr’s sunshades.
“Want to see?” he asked, passing it to me.
I took it. Vesper babbled on, “But everyone wins in the end. I mean, it’s a private school; their fee is already cosmic. Slap on a handsome profit and pass it on to the gods. They made it compulsory for all students to get the programme, bundled it into the required educational AI guide.”
“Now at least all the drugs and substances are legit,” I added.
“Right. I also heard about the company contracted to build the portal... JC has a share.”
“He’s making ‘money’ right, left and everywhere.”
“I know, but what about ethics? The earlier reports on what JC and Ewala said about the purity of the land...”
“Everyone has a price.” I concluded.
“Yah...they do,” he grumped, “Now only time will tell what the kids will do with the planet.”
“It’s an interesting case study. Most will treat it like fuck, I believe. Hook up and snort till they empty the world’s natural resources.”
“And it’s shareable,” Vesper punched in, “definitely there’s gonna be some teenage narcotics cyber-party where the psychedelic lights are freely passed around and sex is aplenty.”
“But I also think a few will come up with things interesting, like how to conserve the planet, or even better the offering.”
“Geek gods.”
“Ha ha.”
“And you know, when that happens, what follows?” Vesper questioned.
I shrug.
“JC will be standing by the corner reaping the rewards.”
“Probably. He’ll definitely collect royalties or something. Whatever new the kids come up with, they’ll repackage and sell.”
“Well, the geeks should get something too.”
“I hope they do...” I strayed off, flipping on the wraparounds.
It was raining like in Frank Miller’s Sin City, like a film noir visual direction. Thunder. In my hand, flicking from black to white in the storm, is a blue, diamond-shaped pill with a lightning-storm logo; a singular contrast against the monochrome. I am to swallow to proceed. If not, life in greyscale is a box. Walk to the edges of thin air, and an invisible wall blocks as though you’re a street clown performing the pantomime. What’s beyond the end, if you get past the force field, is just you coming back out onto the screen where you first began. Existence is 80’s arcade game...Pac Man; and all your experience is a living room in a DVD menu.
Take the tablet and a neon sign says ‘Welcome to Anesidora.’ That’s the name of the planet by the way, and colours abruptly break into fireworks. A carnival is on. Tribal is the theme. In fact, we’re in a forest under a humongous tree. It’s dusk, and blue is the new black. Revellers have got like phosphorescent tattoos on them, and the beats are subwoofer bass under frenetic ethnic drums. Wild women shake their hair; mad men, their buttocks. On every male butt-cheek are circuit configurations, PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) sandwiching the crack. Majority are hip skinny. Girls have extended tresses, and guys own a hole at the base of their spine. No, not that one, but another, positioned above. Above that one. The orifice I speak of is a perfect sphere with a silver cap.
Someone strides up. My stare traces a whirlpool bonfire; smoke tornados on the roof of the giant ET oak. Natives dance round individual fork-tongued flames, dodging the massive thumps of three eight-legged mammoths with triceratops’ head. These extinct elephant-crossbreeds also circle the inferno, and are actually the producers of music be it the stamping rhythm of soles, which are low frequency speaker cones, or the high-definition trumpeting of trunks.
“You wanna insert this?” she asked, holding up pigtails. A green girl stood, swinging split-ended, purple dyed curls.
“The colour doesn’t really flatter you,” I replied.
She sulked.
“Let me rephrase, it doesn’t do your beauty justice.”
She smiled. “What then does?”
“Put it in and find out.”