The division between Pacifica and New America lay north of the San Gabriel Mountains, green after heavy spring rains. Franz’s Intoda Quark descended the Alan Kay Highway, moving from the oaks and pinyon pines of the foothills into the scrub of the high desert. It was hot outside, Mojave hot. Ahead lay the border and an immigration-control checkpoint in the shadow of two gigantic praying hands. They were a hundred feet high, made of steel-reinforced concrete said to be capable of withstanding anything from an 8.5 earthquake to a caravan of truck bombs. It was hard to see much beyond the hands, because of low-level haze generated by off-road enthusiasts and industrial pollution. The horizon was seldom visible in the high desert anymore, not after the Accommodation.

It was time to talk to his nav. Around his neck, Franz wore a necklace with a tiny amethyst Ganesha that was her off-line housing. He opened the Ganesha, removed Betty’s chip, and inserted it into the dashboard. Like most of her kind, her memory was stored redundantly in off-site servers, accessed as soon as she came online. Betty’s personality was not complete with chip alone. “I just don’t feel myself,” she would say, before she was plugged into the Net.

Betty manifested in the lower right hand corner of the windshield, resembling a white-haired librarian in a purple shawl.

“Morning Betty.”

“Morning, Franz. I’m seeing that we took a roundabout journey down PCH and up Topanga, before catching the Ted Nelson and the Alan Kay.”

“I can’t talk when I’m waking up. You know that, Betty.”

She ignored him. “Tell me this, Franz. Any sightings in Topanga? Bikers on Harleys? Nudists? Artists? Actors? Hippies?”

“Saw a coyote.” Franz thought about how Topanga Canyon had been one of the areas targeted for “holy purification” by the ACC when the New Crusades had broken out.

Franz drove on, and they played Global Spiritual Geography for a while.

“Howling storm gods, twin gods of dawn, and gods of wind, Arjuna, wondrous forms not seen before.”

Franz pondered the phrase, then replied, “Lord Krishna speaking in the Bhagavad-Gita.”

“Correct,” she replied. “How about this: so mote it be.”

“Too easy.” Betty was throwing him early-morning softballs. It was a favorite phrase of Owinda, their Wiccan friend.

“I’ll up the level,” said Betty. “But you have incoming. It’s Zon-5.”

“Take a message.” Franz shuddered. The popular AI teleguru was renowned for having cybersex with thousands of his followers in cyberspace, both men and women. He’d been the cause of breakups, not to mention lost work hours, sex addiction and runaway user debt. He proclaimed that he wanted to spread “body enlightenment” around the world, and eagerly sought coverage by shows like Transmigrations. Zon-5 also claimed to be a free agent, independent of a keeper, the person who managed a sentient bot in the Net or outside in holographic form.

“He wants to be a RoboOsho,” said Franz. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho, was a 20th century cult leader who had mixed Eastern religions, humanistic psychology and free love. The “sex guru” had made tons of money, deflowered innumerable devotees and owned several dozen Rolls Royces. Franz wondered if Zon-5 hoped to use his wealth to exist outside; it was rumored he was investing in robotics firms and wanted to upload into physical form.

“Do you want to interview him?”

“So he can increase his virtual harem?”

“The sex couldn’t be safer.”

“He is a sexually transmitted disease, of the neural variety,” laughed Franz. Billy Bob Shepard banned human-bot sex in N’Am, he thought. Was he right?

He let Betty pilot the Quark while he scanned the nets. They were abuzz about Baba Ed’s secret project, and he asked his nav to place part of her attention there.

“Messages from both progressive and sinister forces have been intercepted,” she commented.

“How do you define progressive?” asked Franz.

“Those who care,” smiled Betty. “Those who haven’t lost their way, like someone we know. But who am I to say? I’m just a bundle of nagging algorithms who likes to think she possesses feminine intuition.”

“Your intuition, if we can call it that, has gotten me out of a lot of hot water, Betty.”

“Speaking of which, is this wise to be visiting White Mountain?”

“Foolish. With benefits. After Galactus, we can come straight back and drive all night through the desert.”

“I know how you enjoy that,” said Betty. “You can sleep and let me drive. Or I can keep you awake with appropriate sub-sonic simulations, wind chill, and aggravating talk radio. We can listen to the Howling Patriot.”

“Is that sarcasm coming from your core self or from what you’ve absorbed from me?”

“Both, of course. Navs reflect their masters. Except those whose egos go supernova.”

“Don’t call me your master, Betty.”

“Liberal guilt? Better get rid of it. We are entering the promised land.”

“Yes, here comes the rapture.”

From the dust emerged the great white hands, pressed together and beseeching the skies above. They rose out of an immaculately mown grass strip, the only spot of green for miles. At night, an array of searchlights turned the reverent hands into the brightest sight this side of Las Vegas. A guard in an immigration control booth, who had processed the Quark’s signature signal, took a look at Franz and then waved him through.

“God bless, brother,” said the guard.

“God help us,” replied Franz, stepping on the accelerator.

He passed barren hills with mesquite bushes and Joshua trees. Then a large billboard of a pale, blue-eyed Jesus with his hand resting on the shoulder of a stocky, serious hunter with camouflage apparel and a shotgun. Large letters read “The NRA Welcomes You To N’Am.”

Franz hadn’t scanned as a known terrorist, socialist, tree-hugger, value-deviant or other type of criminal. Yet he knew it was only a matter of time before he registered in the system as a subversive. Transmigrations had done too many segments on evangelicals to remain off N’Am’s radar. Perhaps he was already under surveillance.

The Quark entered a nation with no separation of church and state, business and science. All was one and marched to the same drummer. Religious schools dominated the educational system through high school and they taught Bible studies and creationism, but not evolution or cosmology. Environmental studies were not in the curriculum, nor was sex education. Controversial books were banned. It was a strange place, both selectively Puritanical and utterly unethical. Corruption was at the highest level in the developed world, and deregulation had erased remaining distinctions between politics and special interests. Pornography, abortion, drugs, and homosexual sex were illegal, although the rich and powerful indulged at will in vices provided by a flourishing mafia.

Yet few voices assailed the hypocrisy. The Department of Homeland Safety’s spying complex in Colorado Springs kept close watch over serious dissent. It was considered information terrorism.

Franz did not like it here..
 

excerpt from The Big God Network
© J.C. McGowan 2007