73. Catacombs
This is how the adventure starts:
We are at Catacombs, a sprawling underground city at the core of Jai-I’s perversions, recently hijacked by Nimrod’s army. Above, it’s an expanse of rock, and enormous concrete bridges line the sky below the crystal heaven, a ‘firmament’, which gives off an expensive shimmer of jasper and other precious minerals - goldmines in the stratosphere. Upon those massive arches are buildings made of stone. It is an affluent aerial suburb built over the impressive metropolis, suspended over the insanity of this multi-genus city.
Our arrival coincides with the annual autumn festival of kites, and therefore, immense zeppelins of an Oriental flavour are floating in the rigid airstream of this conurbation’s cavern. On the ground, it’s a masquerade ball. Wigs, masks and ornate gowns are on parade. Red packets, lighted lanterns, firecrackers and lion dances blare, rattle and pop amidst children playing between cherry-blossoms. There's razzle-dazzle and an animated serpent-ride flying through the flourishing trees, its happy-dragon-face and the happier families riding in its intestines within a crusted stomach scaled with fluttering banners stroked with golden, a-bling-bling calligraphy.
`Tis the time for haute couture, outfits not practical for regular life are given the chance to grace in an aura of madness. Monsters not allowed out, and fiends under supervision or curfew, both get free rein for the night. These are some of the most bizarre and exaggerated monstrosities I was blessed to gaze at.
Jai-I says we gotta blend in. Nimrod’s spies are all over the place. You can’t tell from behind those fancy disguises who’s a figment of Jai-I’s imagination and who’s the enemy. And so, here we are, fresh from a bakery, garnished as cakes; painted-on attires which can be consumed. Perhaps it was the wrong choice, for drunken revellers were licking us off, eating royal icing off my head. A crack from Vesper’s whip put everyone in place. “Not too conspicuous,” Jai-I chastised the Evening Star. Not sure if he took it well...but, shrugs, now is not the time for trivialities.
Regardless, we are no more sticking out of place. The destination is the city square, adjacent to the the massive arches. Lazers shoot below the bridges, like a river of light, and heavy traffic is disappearing and reappearing to and fro behind those shiny beams.
It’s a portal to Nimrod’s world, juxtaposing highways, a conduit to other cities. Everything he steals from Jai-I go in there, everything he replaces with comes out from it. For example, the mushroom houses, the edible bungalows; Jai-I, caught dead, would not instigate such childish apparitions. As you know, son of Jahr is more of a cold unyielding persona. His creations are sex and anarchy; teenage rebellion staying put in adulthood.
So it’s quite easy after a while differentiating the architecture, what’s an original Jai-I and what’s a fake Nimrod remodelling the blueprint. Even the people; if they are hairy bunnies, plush dragons, cute monsters, you can bet they are the god-boy’s. If they ooze sexual retardation, they also belong to the child deity. On the other hand, if the creation is horny and flirtatious, good chance Jai-I made them. Some are more confusing. Like innocent Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks soliciting you for sex.
They were probably a red she-devil dominatrix and a golden-angel submissive before the symptoms of Nimrodititis started showing. Usually the disease eats the body before the mind, altering the manifestation from a genuine Jai-I to a Nimrod makeover. Occasionally it affects the lobes first. Then you’d have a cool Fonzie mouthing baby talk and soiling his jeans. Before long, he’d be naked except for disposable napkins, sucking on a pacifier.
A hundred meters from the bright dimensional portal, Jai-I blurts out a disturbing truth, “I think I’m gonna refurbish ZOOL.A.ND.”
Vesper and I stopped short in our tracks, staring at each other, then penetrating concerned looks into Jai-I’s mind.
He continues, “Nimrod ain’t that bad. I can pick up tips from that young guy. My designs have been pretty much one-dimensional; too morbid in its hedonism, now that I ponder over. Need more dashes of colour. Need more childlikeness. Something more garish, more lollipop sucking, an amalgam,” he rotates his fingers, as if fashioning, “a cross between Nimrod and I.”
I was shocked. So was Vesper; but he showed not. Nimrodititis apparently had been more damaging. It was slow to articulate in Jai-I’s case. We thought his antibodies were doing a good job. Sure, Jai-I’s world was systematically chewed up, but his being was intact. So we assumed. But my MRI activated eyes now resonate that the syndrome had been quietly regurgitating his cells. They were well hidden under Nimrod’s spell. Now that the malady is near a complete takeover of Jai-I’s brain, the virus discards the disguise it’d don and surges for the final strike.
“Now’s not the time for Creator Insecurity,” I went for the brash approach, very well aware it was the Nimrodititis speaking through Jai-I.
“How much time do we got?” Vesper asked.
“Not much...I think, before he collapses. We gotta get him to another realm. Get him out of his own mind.” I pointed to the rapid dimensional highway of light.
Jai-I’s throwing a tantrum, an uncalled for disintegration of confidence. All at the wrong moment! The virus’ reading our minds, it comprehends our plans. As long as we are in Jai-I’s head, we too are not safe. The rabies will eat our brains. Nimrod’s controlling Jai-I to stop us.
“It’s true, it’s true,” son of Jahr cries out, “nothing I’ve made has been good enough...”
“Everything you’d made has been excellent!” Vesper slaps him, losing patience.
“No, no,” Jai-I fights back.
“Can’t use violence in a time like this, bro,” I calmed Vesper down even as his actions caught gaudy looks from technicoloured ravers and a yellow-faced constable built of Lego bricks. “It won’t work. We need psychology. Let him talk.”
“We gotta creep behind Nimrod’s programming,” I added.
Vesper nodded.
“Ok bro, tell me about it.”
“My father, my father,” Jai-I was in tears, “why have you forsaken me? Everything I do is not good enough.”
“Why do you say that?” I tried to empathize.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he shot a remonstrance, going into a list of all the things he’d done that were off the mark. There were many, to his discernment. “Why does he have to be so hard?”
“Have you ever stopped to think,” Vesper put in, “that perhaps it’s your father who is at fault?”
This got Jai-I’s attention.
“I mean, his standards are just way too high. Does he even keep them in first place? If you ask me, what you do is just as good, if not better than dad’s,” Vesper blasphemed.
“Yah, I agree,” I collaborated, risking Jahr’s wrath, “standards are subjective, anyway. All you’d designed had been sublime. Just take a look at ZOO.L.A.ND...did me wonders.” I recalled Sha-Rronne, and Elizabeth Amber and the Village Idiot, and later Sharon...and, what’s her boyfriend’s name again?
Vesper went for the kill, “Look, yer an anarchist. Do whatever you want, not your father’s wishes.”
Jai-I replied, “I know. Just that I enter his realm, and witness his creation, and I go...well, I’ll be honest, way inferior...
“Did you see that theme-park universe he constructed out of nothing after dissolving an entire dimension and its ruling supercomputer?”
“Well...I was at its initiation,” remembering the curly-haired, yellow-booted contractor Jahr hired when I went over to his mountaintop mansion cum office to consult him on my mental health.
Now it’s Jai-I’s turn for a shrink!
Vesper steered back on course, “And if Jahr enters Jai-I’s worlds, he would feel the same.”
Silence.
Could it be true? Jai-I must be assessing.
I pressed on, “I go into your world and I’m blown away,” glancing at Vesper for affirmation.
“Me, too,” he nodded...a tad doubtful of the effectiveness of my stratagem.
“Yah,” Jai-I launched a cracker, “that’s you. You’re not Jahr. Do you even show him your talents?”
“I haven’t made anything,” I defended.
“Yah, right! Horny Hound? Ring a bell? What would you think if Jahr walked in? Or JC? Or any big fat god for that matter?”
He got me there. The Hound is no place I’m proud to parade for any hot-shot deity, but I pursued with my heresy; it’s either this or being consumed by Nimrodititis. “Who knows? What if Jahr’s a horny bastard too, and he’ll like a wankjob by Fanny Wong?”
Jai-I was appalled. This was his sickness speaking, `cos in normal circumstances, son of Jahr would have just laughed through my incredulous assertion.
“Yah, look at Earth,” Vesper threaded, “world of your genesis; movers and shakers, industry leaders, throughout history carried dark, dirty secrets. Religious, righteous men had plenty semen stained laundry in seedy motels and decomposing corpses in closets.
“What makes you conclude that if man is evil, god isn't?”
Silence again.
I tried a trick, “Why not carry on the conversation over the other side?” I gestured to the lazer of light, “Doubt it would be that crowded.”
“I don’t know,” Nimrod stated via Jai-I’s voice, “I like talking here. You are both giving me clarity.”
“That’s good,” I assured.
“Here’s a thought,” Vesper injected, “What if Jahr does not look down on your creations? You are his son, after all. What if the truth is that it is only you, yourself, who abases yourself?”
I picked up the thread, but part of me felt that we were talking too much, wasting precious time, “I mentioned Creator Insecurities earlier. It’s not an uncommon dilemma. I bet your dad has them. I have them, too...if anything I’d done had been worthwhile...
“See! I just proved myself right.”
That was lame. Jai-I, infected by Nimrodititis, is fidgeting. He is not buying any of this. Nimrod is not fooled. He floors us, “So, if yer saying I’m suffering from Creator Insecurity...won’t that be worse? Now, it’s not what Jahr thinks of me, but what I think of myself. And what I think of myself is that I suck!”
“That’s not true,” we both interjected on reflex.
“Prove it!”
I gave Vesper a defeated air. He breathed it in. Nothing we can say will sway or win. Nimrod’s got him by the balls. Sensing victory, Jai-I’s tone of voice changed. He is twitching, writhing, shrinking, and when he next gazes, there’re two black pools of nothingness in his eyes. Then a teddy bear with an evil grin emerged from within him, red and unsightly, grimy with knotted fur, possessing the son of Jahr, morphing his appearance to a discarded cuddly toy. A child’s mischievous laughter echoes over Catacombs, and fur-ball Jai-I utters in a comical tune, “Nimrod says, hi!”
And thus, he collapses and dies.