The Grief Team (20 page)

Mall-viewers had never seen anything like it. A Stage Five—and quite a delectable one at that!—had begun Revelation Night by introducing a miracle-boy. There he was, strapped to a wooden cross that had been placed slightly behind and to the right of the her. It was obviously a fake wooden cross, some sort of stage prop—any-experienced-viewer could see that!—but the boy attached to it certainly wasn’t. As the program director ordered cameras to switch between the two, he himself was experiencing an extraordinary frisson of excitement every time the boy’s pallid features filled the screen. It was difficult to take his eyes off of him. Was the audience getting the same thrill?

Jason-no-last-name, the subject of this crucifixion, appeared to be senseless, his eyes half-closed and his movements minimal. Only moments before, several members of the studio audience were heard to shout excitedly, standing in their seats, pointing wildly at the boy.

“Blood! Blood!” they screamed and the audience buzzed.

The director heard them and sent two cameras zooming in on the pathetic boy. “Stigmata!” he breathed into his microphone, as the cameras traced the wounds in the boy’s hands and the blood seeping out of his tattered running shoes onto the floor. A dark patch was slowly spreading on the right side of his T-shirt.

Ferria, who was explaining the failure of Elias and his son Gabriel in preserving and protecting the thousands of embryos in Cedarbrae, stuttered to a halt. The attention of the audience had been diverted and people simply weren’t listening. A mild sense of panic introduced itself and the manic thought that she might have to reveal her breasts in order to win them back zipped through her mind. Her left hand crept toward a strap but stopped when she realized what she was doing. Better instead to skip to the main event, she realized.

“Citizens-of-the-Malls, let me introduce you to Jason-no-last-name. Only hours ago, this miracle-boy appeared in the E.C. following his escape from the Grief Team. That noble institution, led by Gabriel Kraft, was incapable of preventing this miserable Kid from walking right into our living space. And what is he here for?”

The director settled for a two-shot, placing the miracle-boy and Ferria side-by-side on screen.

“He’s here to bring religion back to the Malls! He’s here to tell you to believe in him!” Ferria heard the scattered boos and cat-calls and warmed to the rhythm.

“Many of you will remember religion…names like God, Mohammed, Buddha, Koresh and all of the others…all gone now. The Father-of-the-Malls taught us the truth about false prophets and false religions, didn’t he? And now, once again, religion rears its ugly head and expects you and I to fall on our knees and beg forgiveness in return for nothing but tricks-disguised-as-miracles.”

Shouts of “Never!” and “Shame!” echoed in the studio and the director called for quick shots of the more-visibly-enraged members of the audience.

“I am Ferria d’Mont, just a simple Stage Five asking for the opportunity to live and work with you in the Malls and, as my pledge and offering to you on this Revelation Night, I have brought Jason-no-last-name here to prove once and for all that the only prophets are false prophets!”

Ferria’s words were heard offstage as the signal for the entrance of one of Mall TV’s most popular characters. To thunderous applause as the spots swung over to the rustling curtains at stage left, Arnie the Headsman sauntered onstage. Moustache thick with wax, shaved head gleaming, he mugged for the crowd, hefting his shining axe above his head and shaking it fiercely.

“Wide! Go wide!” screamed the director, and mall-home-viewers were treated to a shot of all three protagonists as Arnie positioned himself so that the false prophet was between him and Ferria. Arnie was seen to lean towards the boy, clearly saying something to him. The boom mike swung in low.

“Just relax, kid. I’ll make it short and simple. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Citizens!” cried Ferria, as she motioned them to be silent, “There is nothing as certain as death. If there is, this boy…this lame-looking little Wildkid you see here before you…so scared he’s already started bleeding!…if there’s no death, then he won’t die, it’s as simple as that.”

“Ar-nie! Ar-nie!” The audience had begun the chant and, for a full minute, they made their hero feel right at home. Stagehands appeared, placing the headman’s block at his feet, while others tilted the cross-and-boy backwards, lowering the top against the block at a convenient angle for the stroke, now imminent. Arnie turned and began professionally-assessing the parameters of angle, distance, and speed. The intensity of the audience’s chant went off the scale and the director, overjoyed with the response, suddenly turned and kissed his assistant passionately, his right hand full of receptive boob. “The ratings!” he breathed. “We’re off the fucking scale!”

“I asked you what you’re doing here! Who are you?” Peter Heckbert stepped inside the Filtration room and saw the cluster of tanks and the opened vent. A whoosh of rising air reverberated around him.

“These tanks should be at Cedarbrae…how did you…?” Heckbert’s synapses made the necessary connections and the full weight of the revelation was like a physical blow, knocking him back several steps. “You insane bastard! You switched the tanks and killed the embryos!” A rising chuckle from the man-on-the-floor only served to ingite further outrage. “You’re out-of-your-fucking-mind!”

Emmett, seated, back-to-the-wall, grinned up at him. “More credit than I deserve actually. Can you believe anyone would make such a mistake? I mean, really, would you want to employ anyone who couldn’t read to handle such important matters?” Although his arms ached unbearably, Emmett pushed himself into a standing position and faced his accuser.

“Don’t you believe in fate, whoever-you-are?” he asked, massaging his wrists. “Don’t you believe that there’s a plan for everything that goes on in this wonderful system of Malls we’ve built for ourselves?” An uncontrollable giggle erupted out of him. “Don’t you believe that what falls down must come back up?”

Heckbert’s hands placed themselves around Emmett’s throat and his thumbs, finding the windpipe, pressed inward. “You know what will happen if those tanks are opened…everyone in the E.C. will be killed!”

Emmett struggled for breath. Pain flowed like liquid fire through his arms as he tried to break Heckbert’s grip. The struggle such as it was would not last long.

The sounds of sharp intakes of breath were suddenly broken by a caterwaul that was unearthly in its intensity. Heckbert, concentration askew, stared at the doorway and didn’t believe what he saw. In that moment, Emmett’s right arm broke Heckbert’s grip, moving upward, cupping the left side of gleaming baldness in his palm and driving it down onto the top of the closest tank. There was a short, wet sound, like fruit splitting, and Heckbert slid to the floor.

Emmett, bent over, gasped for breath, black spots in his vision clearing until he was cognizant of the cat in the doorway. Its eyes seemed to bore into Emmett’s and its mouth opened and closed as if it might speak again but had decided against it.

“Get the fuck out of here!” screamed Emmett, and the cat vanished.

He straightened and looked at the bloody mess. Blood and brain matter ran in vivid streaks from the top of a cylinder. Ignoring it, Emmett began turning the taps to their open positions, one after the other…

Grey Kitty returned to Cathy’s side in an instant, tail erect, and meowing insistently. He pushed against her legs, making her turn in the opposite direction. He scampered back along the corridor and waited for her to catch up and open the door. Cathy hurried as quickly as she could, as tired as she was. The sounds she had heard back there, followed by the awful command, terrified her and she was fighting back tears.

Through the door and another dash along another corridor. Where were they going? When would it end? Another door…and there, garbed in black, imposing and still, stood Gabriel Kraft, hero to all mall-children, Defender-of-the-Malls, Director of the Grief Team.

“Hello, Cathy. How are you, my dear? I honour you.”

Cathy, relief and joy coursing through her, would have run to his embrace but was prevented by Grey Kitty, who quickly moved in front of her, his back arched, fur electrified, and spitting a vicious hiss.

Gabriel laughed. “Honestly, is that the best you can do, Michael? A hissing pussycat? You have grown weak, my boy.”

Cathy didn’t understand. She looked at Grey Kitty but she couldn’t see him clearly. The corridor was filling with light, so bright and intense that she immediately felt dizzy and her legs wobbled. The light was painful and she shut her eyes, feeling herself falling, bumping against the wall and sliding onto her bottom, one leg crossed under her. She screamed in terror.

As suddenly as it came, the light went. As her dizziness cleared, she heard her name being spoken. She opened her eyes and was transfixed by what she saw.

Another man!

As tall as Gabriel, but fair-haired and dressed in white. She uttered a sharp cry when she saw the golden gleaming sword in his hand but did not feel afraid.

Where was Grey Kitty? 

“Still as angelic as ever, Michael,” scoffed the Director of the Grief Team. “Do you have a plan or are you just going to wing it?” His laughter was long and loud.

Cathy looked up and down the corridor but could not see her feline companion.

“Where is Grey Kitty?” she cried, looking at each man in turn. “Where did Grey Kitty go?” Tears began to flow. “I don’t…understand.”

The man-in-white reached down and gently stroked Cathy’s head. “I’m right here. Just different. Don’t worry.”

The moment was interrupted by Gabriel’s laughter. “She’s seen a lot things, Michael, but I doubt if she’s going to believe this. What do you say, Cathy? Can a pussycat turn into a man?”

“I’m right here. Just different. Don’t worry.”

Cathy didn’t have an answer. There wasn’t anything inside her head to say. She looked at Gabriel but couldn’t speak.

“I’m right here. Just different. Don’t worry.”

Nodding, Gabriel smiled broadly and, in one fluid motion, brought the zipstick out from behind him and sent one sizzling streak of lightning into the chest of the man-in-white. The impact was loud and vibrant in the close confines of the corridor and sent his body reeling backward into the door. Cathy slapped her hands over her eyes to shut out the terrible sound but her eyes captured the awful picture of the burning, smoking hole in the man’s chest.

She struggled to understand.

Was this man Grey Kitty? How could it be?

A cat couldn’t change itself into a man.

He must be lying…he had made Grey Kitty disappear and he was lying to her.

“She’s got disbelief written all over her face, Michael! Look at her!”

Michael gasped. Everything…everything depended on this one little girl. The fingers of his right hand loosened against the grip of his sword as his strength ebbed.

“Michael, you’re losing. What a pity that it has to end so quickly, especially since it took you and Jason…always sticks with the J’s, doesn’t he?…so long to put in an appearance.” Gabriel’s eyes were like torches of fire and lightning crackled along his fingertips. A dark hood of gloom had settled over his features. Cathy felt the malevolence and shrank back against the wall. He was frightening her badly.

Michael’s lips moved. “God wants you back, Gabriel. All the damage that Lucifer did destroyed him, as it will you.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Gabriel. “I was always twice the angel that Lucifer was. He was all fire and brimstone…never could finish what he started. I, on the other hand, have an appreciation for nuance and craftsmanship.” He stiffened and his voice became that of Father, the voice which had willed hundreds of Wildkids to obey, and then sent them to their deaths.

“Therefore,” he intoned, “before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of finest gold around his waist. His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude. And with his sword, I slew him.”

Cathy watched in a daze as Gabriel reached down and took Michael’s sword. There was no resistance.

How can he be Grey Kitty?

She watched as Michael’s face turned to hers. His features were solemn and composed. Inside, she felt a warm glow and her tiredness fell away and she was refreshed. She looked into his eyes and was surprised by a stroke of recognition which stabbed like a needle but without any pain. His eyes…she had looked into those eyes many times…

…she knew those eyes…

…like…like cat’s eyes…

Michael’s lips moved. “Do you believe me, Cathy?”

…like cat’s eyes…

Cathy was certain. She nodded. “I believe you,” she said, each word spoken with more certainty than the one before.

Upon the last, a terrible shriek of denial exploded out of Gabriel Kraft. Without time registering, Michael retrieved his sword and removed the head of his adversary. An intense flash of light stunned Cathy and she toppled onto her side, unconscious.

When she recovered, she found herself outside the E.C. and on a Clean-bus. The soft weight in her palm was fur and it was purring proudly.

“Ar-nie! Ar-nie! Ar-nie!”

Ferria d’Mont, Stage Five candidate for mall-citizenship, positively glowed under the lights in Studio A. Her gleaming white teeth, revealed in an all-encompassing smile of triumph, flashed across the wires into the mall-homes of hundreds. Her election could not be doubted, not one other candidate could possibly match the free show that she was providing with its now imminent, cataclysmic finale.

“Do it!” she cried, eyes flashing, as she mimed the downward sweep of Arnie the Headman’s silver blade.

Arnie, who lived his life on the cutting edge, didn’t hesitate. Up went the axe and drops of sweat fell from his burnished, muscular arms as they were raised over his gleaming pate. His moustachios twitched and his eyes began to glaze over as his mind sought that special, magical place where his libido was waiting to receive that heady rush once again.

Down, down, down…in a perfect arc.

A blur slightly off to the left of camera one. Two small hands planting themselves in the sculpted flesh of Ferria d’Mont’s back and pushing…hard.

A dazzling kaleidoscope of flailing movements as Ferria turned in mid-air, her face distorted, to view her assailant. Falling backwards, landing atop Jason-no-last-name.

A moment to recognize Roy Glyn and the look of hate etched on his young features.

Another moment to be transfixed by the arc of the blade.

No time to peruse the impact as Arnie the Headsman decapitated her on live Mall TV. Cameraman three, reacting to the director’s mad cry to “Follow the head!”, did the best he could.

In the resultant chaos, as Stage Five candidates, their parents and supporters, and a plethora of bewildered stage assistants milled about madly, screaming and yelling, Roy Glyn escaped.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” breathed the director. “This is just too good! Too good!” There was no complaint from his assistant when he pushed her head into his lap. A job was a job.

Arnie the Headsman, distraught, could not understand where the boy-on-the-cross had gone. Axe dripping, he stood scratching his dome, trying to figure it out. “This has never happened before,” he muttered repeatedly.

In the E.C., the images continued to play (and re-play!) in all of their gory detail in front of hundreds of Mall-viewers. Asphyxiated by a strange concoction sucked up from the filtration unit, their dull eyes registering nothing, they had missed the highest-rated show ever.

As if placed as an exclamation point to this quiet carnage, Emmett Strachan, three floors below, lay prone and with fingers entwined upon his chest…having also breathed his last.

In SkyDome, the image of Ferria d’Mont’s head rolling along the studio floor, finally coming to rest against a crosswork of cables, provoked howls of delight. Wildkids had recognized Roy Glyn as one of their own and there were numerous clusters who began to leap and dance and shout. The ‘other Kid’, the one-on-the-cross, had been saved!

“’scaped! Fuk’n’scaped!” they howled.

The turmoil continued for some time all around the Dome until, patch by patch, an eerie silence signalled the end of the merriment. Under the arclights, covering a wide swath of turf, an enormous contingent of Mulls stood, their hands filled with all manner of weapons and implements.

As the silence hung heavy, the two sides waited. Some Kids, thinking quickly, moved to the fore, tapping zipsticks stolen from dead Yellowbands in outstretched palms. Mulls scanned the lines, making their selections, some looking and considering thoughtfully as they tried to match the requirements of favourite recipes. A stench of urine and faeces arose as the smaller, frightened Kids purged themselves.

The audio system in SkyDome crackled and popped, splitting the silence, causing numerous involuntary movements within both groups. Seconds later, a tidal wave of white light swept over them all as the Jumbotron became one gargantuan sun. Dazzled, Mulls-and- Kids-alike shielded their eyes until the corona ebbed and faded into the image of Jason-no-last-name. Struck dumb, no one moved and all eyes were fastened on the-boy-who-was-the-sun.

The surreal sense that Jason’s eyes were actually seeing them was all-pervasive. Each Mull, each Kid felt the piercing eyes light upon them and look quickly look inside, leaving a strange pulse—a newer, lighter rhythm—behind. The clink and clank of weapons bouncing off the turf was ignored and all eyes remained inexorably on the image in front of them. Jason-no-last-name, his tattered red T-shirt and green track pants now gone forever, stood in robes of flowing white; his features smooth, his pallor gone.

His message found each and every mind in SkyDome and flowed cleanly and without opposition, bringing calm and tranquility. At its very core, it planted hope in their hearts; hope for the days to come, for the remainder of their lives lived. It eschewed violence, greed, and want. It gave them faith.

And, when it was over and the image had faded to nothingness, Crones appeared, dozens of them, each smiling and holding a blue backpack. They moved among Mulls and Wildkids alike, touching them gently with their hands and dispensing tunafish sandwiches to the hungry. One after another after another, an endless, limitless supply until the miracle taking place was clear to all.