Starring -- A Novel

Chapter 2

(continued)

MICHAEL JACKSON: "Being an entertainer, you just can't tell who is your friend. So I surround myself with people I want to be my friends. And I can do that with mannequins. I'll talk to them."

But the only sound in the ballroom is Michael singing, and after a second I calm down enough to bolt some more Benzedrine and get a grip on myself. So this is Jacko's view of the adult world... I have to admit, it has a certain logic. Mannequins are much easier to deal with than real people, & lower maintenance as well. They hardly ever impose their own problems on you... and if they do, they're easily replaced. Still, being here is starting to give me a creeping case of The Fear, and what I'm looking for isn't here. It'll no doubt be kept in the most private recesses of Jacko's home...and bopping around blindly is no way to find it. Best to search on foot, as methodically as is possible in my current state.

So I leave the ballroom statues, exiting through a big oak-paneled door and into a deserted hall. I creep down it, then up a spiral staircase. The house seems to be deserted--I suppose everyone is at the concert. Hopefully Jacko will be too busy to notice I'm gone...at least until I find what I came here for.

The music follows me as I search. It's everywhere, even though I can't see any speakers and the sound is too clear & regular to be spilling over from outside. It's as if every solid object in the world has been turned into a speaker, vibrating with the right intensity to produce the notes needed... I have a sudden flash of this happening all over the globe, giant mile-high screens over Chicago & Venice & Prague filled with Jacko's mercuric face as he croons about love & peace & world harmony, the sound radiating from buildings, cars, the earth itself...it's an oddly disturbing vision, and somehow I know it's a true one. Nobody will escape Michael's message...I only hope it's something we can live with.

BILLY JOEL: "For me, music is this magic acoustic element that makes perfectly rational people who have come to realize the unalterable fact that they are truly alone in this world somehow feel for fleeting moments that maybe they're not after all."

Some of the things I find in my search are even more bizarre and unsettling than the room full of mannequins...I stumble onto a full-sized replica of the set of Sesame Street, inhabited by a man-sized purple dinosaur that lurches toward me as soon as I open the door. I slam it shut quickly before he starts talking...Jacko's doing "Earth Song" now; I sense a theme. And there's something else, an eerily familiar kind of moan in the background that raises my hackles and produces a sick chill in the pit of my stomach. I edge toward a window and take a nervous look outside...

And Jesus God, it's the kids.

That unnatural moan is coming from the mouths of Jacko's audience, and what's worse, I finally recognize it. I knew a junkie named Pauly once, and everytime he fixed he'd make that kind of noise as the smack hit...the kids have the same look on their faces too, jaws slack, eyes rolled up in their heads, idiot grins on their faces...and as I watch, one or two simply forget to hang on and let go of the branch they're perched on. They don't fall though; instead, they just kind of float in place, their limbs dangling loosely. A few begin to drift around like zombie balloons.

He isn't just singing to them--he's getting them off. And whatever voodoo he's working with harmonics & vibrational frequencies & alien mindfuck techniques, it's strictly for the playground set--the only bliss I'm feeling is chemical. Believe me, if a new flavour was added to my brain, I'd know.

DAVID LEE ROTH: "When I'm onstage, it's like doing it with 20,000 of your closest friends."

But maybe I'm judging Jacko too harshly--could be he's sharing this buzz with everyone and the hellbrew in my bloodstream is somehow blocking its effects. Isn't that what all performers strive for, anyway--to get their audience's rocks off?

And even as the thought crosses my mind, I know that it is, as Big Steve used to say, bullshit of the purest ray serene. Jacko doesn't care about the rest of the world--he cares about the children, and this is his gift to them. Or at least part of it...he mentioned something about making them safer, and while I agree that a good high can make reality a lot more bearable, it doesn't do too much in the way of increasing safety--unless God really does look out for fools & drunks. No, this is just the warmup... Michael has something else up his silver sleeve.

But in the meantime, it's hard to argue with the fact that he's actually succeeded in making all the children of the world a little happier...a lot happier, if the look on those kids' faces floating around out there is any indication. And why not? The only legal rush kids get to know before puberty is the sugar-high & the roller-coaster adrenaline boost. . .Jacko's probably stimulating the pleasure-centers of their brains directly, bypassing all that messy mucking about with needles & bottles & pipes...even better than sex, probably, and without any risk of disease or unwanted pregnancy. Just pleasure, the pure thing, unselfishly given. Some people, Jacko included, might call that love...

But I wouldn't.

ELVIS: "Sad thing is ... you can still love someone and be wrong for them."

Because, you see, he didn't ask them. And even if he had, you don't walk up to an eight-year old with a hypo full of morphine and say "Hey, how'd you like to have some fun?..." Drugs, like sex & automatic weapons, are for adults. They are powerful things, and can turn on their user as easily as an inbred pitbull. No matter how much Jacko loves kids, this way of showing his love is inappropriate...whether or not the kids themselves agree. It's also highly illegal--although that concept is meaningless when applied to the Stars. You might as well try to arrest a flood for property damage.

In any case, there's nothing I can do about it. This is Jacko's home turf, and if I were to try to interfere, he'd feed me to the leopards... . besides, I still haven't found what I came here for. I turn away from the window and continue my search.

It takes me the better part of an hour, but I finally find it.

It's in a room hidden behind a locked steel door in the heart of the house--but a locked door doesn't mean a lot to someone who can teleport. Jacko himself probably uses the same method to get in and out, and only has a door for emergencies. It's his bedroom, of course, though there's a noticeable lack of a bed. All the other signs of a private space are there, though: signed photos of him & McCauley, him & Oprah, him & Diana Ross; a rack of designer sunglasses; a walk-in closet.

And the chamber.

It sits in the center of the room, its legs sunk deep into the thick white pile of the carpet. It's roughly coffin-sized, but with the smooth, rounded edges of a torpedo. It's a deep, glassy blue-green in color--the color of a material often used in Linker technology. The rumors I'd heard, it seems, are true; Jacko sleeps in this thing--and it keeps him young.

ELVIS: "Just because you look good, don't mean you feel good. Folks always look good in their coffins."

The Linkers use a lot of nanotech, robots so small they can assemble or take apart individual molecules, giving them the ability to basically create ordestroy anything they want...and if that's how Jacko does his shape-shifting, he can recreate himself every day as young as he wants to appear. But appearances can be deceiving--and according to researchers studying Linker tech, a ten-year-old boy with eighty-year-old molecules will find himself prone to a whole different set of aging problems. Molecular cohesion degrades in both the material of the body & the nanites themselves...until one day Mr. Jackson just dissolves into a cloud of extremely fine dust.

Unless he finds a way out...some say there's nothing the Linkers can't do, if you know how to ask & have a way to pay. Jacko has plenty of coin, the same coin all the Stars use: his talent. Music, books, films, art--the aliens are buying it up at an amazing rate, and they seem to regard the marvels they give us in exchange in the same way the Pilgrims felt about trading trinkets to the Indians. Even giving us teleportation was no more significant than a South Seas trader giving some Fiji Islanders a couple of bicycles--he knows they can't use them to get off the island, and good luck when the tires give out.

But maybe Jacko cut a deal, found a solution; maybe the solution is something the Linkers take for granted but we would not... rejuvenation, perhaps. A way to reverse entropy, to stop that slow march towards destruction we all face. A chance, maybe, to turn around and walk the other way.

Indeed. The mind reels at the possibilities...but now is not the time to ponder them. It sounds as if Jacko is through keeping us in suspense...

"--Thank you, everybody," he says. It sounds as though he's right in the room next to me, and for a second I think about all those people worldwide who are finding this hideously inappropriate--someone having a stroke, a victim half-way through a vicious rape, a grief-stricken husband watching the last few pulses of life leave his dying wife... these things are happening every moment of every day, somewhere in the world, and these people will never be Jacko's friends. No matter what your intentions, nothing is universally good. . .and no matter how hard you try to build a utopia, if enough people are involved one of them will wind up choking on a golden apple. It's called statistics, and a crueler or more unfair concept has never been found outside of politics.

BILLY JOEL: "I've come to realize that life is not a musical comedy. It's a Greek tragedy."

"Nobody realizes it yet, but things are different now," he says in that soft, shy voice. "The songs I've been performing have had something special added to them, a carrier wave given me by my alien friends. It's changed the brain of every child on the planet in a small but important way, a way that will help and protect all of them.

"All of you now have a very special ability. It's something you'll only be able to do when you're in pain--and then you can send all of that pain right back at the person who's hurting you. No one will ever hurt you again, not if you don't want them to..."

Christ on a Jet-ski...it makes perfect sense, of course. I'll assume he's talking about strictly physical pain, and that it won't function while say, under anesthesia. Still, I can see a world of problems with no effort at all... kids with chronic health problems being ostracized because no one can stand to be near them--or, if it's something they can turn on & off, the same kids becoming sadistic bullies by throwing their pain around like some kind of medical martial art...but Jacko means well, and I can't deny that a lot of child-beaters will think twice before taking a leather belt to their offspring. Or maybe it will just lead to subtler, more insidious abuses--Jacko didn't say anything about verbal abuse, or sensory deprivation...

STEVEN SPIELBERG: "It's a nice place Michael comes from. I wish we could all spend some time in his world."

In any case, the balance of power has shifted, again. It seems, sometimes, that today's world is so savagely unpredictable that nothing matters any more--and if you don't like the current reality, wait ten minutes; it'll change.

But there are still some constants, some values that hold true; love, in all its cruel glory, is one of them. And that, boys & girls, is the real reason why I'm here, in the hidden guts of Neverland, standing in front of Jacko's little secret; it's all part of The Story...one that begins with a friend of mine, and a problem he asked me to help solve.

Which sounds like the setup to the ninth book in a series of cheap crime novels..."Well, Bob, it seems my wife has been murdered while on a business trip to the Bahamas and the local police won't do a thing--I understand you solve murders in your spare time when you're not teaching nubile co-eds to skydive and I was wondering if you would take the case..."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Death is involved, yes, but the killer has already been caught & summarily executed. No, my friend's problem is much simpler: his wife is dead, and he wants her back.

And before the New Gods came, this would not be a problem you could solve, short of suicide--but now, as Jacko said, everything is different. All life is made of energy & matter, and the Stars play with those like dice. Maybe death can be cheated, or at least bargained with...and I was my friend's last hope.

"I don't want to die," he told me. "And I know that's not what she would want, either. She wants me to be happy. And I thought I could handle it, I really did...I thought the worst was over. I was wrong."

My friend's wife had AIDS. He knew this when he met her, and he married her anyway. It's a decision I've never fully understood, but I respect it, regardless...and I respect him for the price he was willing to pay for love. I asked him once if it was worth it, and he just gave me a sad little smile and said, "If you knew Evelyn like I did, you wouldn't ask that question." He always maintained that marrying her was an essentially selfish decision--that every moment with her was precious beyond compare, and their five years of marriage made him the richest man on Earth.

And now that it's over, he's a pauper again...and there are none so poor as those who know what they've lost. My friend & his wife were the kind of people that enjoyed life to its fullest, revelling in its richness and complexity, taking big bites and savouring every mouthful. All that is gone now, leaving only a raw emptiness...an emptiness that seems, to him, to be everywhere.

JIM MORRISON: "I think the highest and lowest points are the most important ones."

"It started with the things you would expect," he told me. "I'd hear one of her favourite songs and feel a pain so deep it was beyond tears...or see a picture of us together that would tear my heart into pieces. So I didn't listen to those songs or look at those pictures...and then it got worse.

"Television reminded me of curling up on the couch with her and laughing at reruns of M.A.S.H. or Northern Exposure...every book on my shelf reminded me of discussions we'd had about writers. I got so I couldn't even eat off the plates in the house. Too many memories of candelit dinners...when she was with me, everything seemed charged with magic; now that she's gone, all the magic's turned black and poisonous..."

So he tried desperate measures. He gathered up everything that reminded him of her--everything he owned--and put it in storage. He moved to another house, bought new clothes & furniture & dishes. And it didn't help.

"I couldn't go to any of the restaurants or theatres we used to go to. I couldn't see any of our friends. I couldn't drink or eat or look at the sky without seeing her. She's wrapped around everything I know or am, and she's dead. I can't seem to let her go...and I can't go on like this."

ELVIS: "(Memories) cut both ways. There's no way to forget the worst pain, but nothin' gives you the same kind of pleasure as rememberin' your greatest happiness."

The poor, doomed bastard...the same thing happens to some animals that mate for life. When one of them dies, the other's not far behind... unless a miracle occurs. And this is, after all, the age of miracles... so why not? I've never been able to resist the lure of the doomed... and doomed is the only description for my friend. What eventually became of him is too horrible to recount, even for me--a fate of hideous proportions.

Which explains, sort of, why I've broken into Jacko's house and am now contemplating the device that may be able to turn back the clock on death itself... Which is when Jacko makes his entrance.

I should have noticed that the music had stopped. Jacko, of course, had saved his big announcement for last...and he had some sort of security system that I'd tripped. I'd forgotten how paranoid he is about his privacy--a mistake, and possibly a fatal one. The Boy King does not look happy.

"What are you doing here?" he asks quietly. He's wearing his adult body, with the red & black leather outfit he made famous in the Thriller video.

"Uh, looking for the bathroom?" I hazard.

"For an hour? They're not that hard to find...I think you're lying to me, Doc. I don't like that." His voice may be soft, but there's a steely tone underneath--and Jacko didn't get to where he is today by letting punks push him around.

"All right, all right...I'm here by Congressional order, Michael. They're concerned that an attempt may be made on your life by Haitian terrorists. Seems your latest album has incited rioting in the streets...half a dozen heavily armed Cuban nationals in the employ of an ex-Ton Ton Macoute named De Villier were spotted slipping into Key West five days ago. The word on the street is they're packing a baby nuke bought on the Red Market... I'm here to make sure they haven't already infiltrated you. Several of their number are dwarves with a fiendish talent for disguise..."

Michael doesn't seem impressed. What he seems is bigger...and hairier. So many people have seen the transformation scene in Thriller it hardly seems worth repeating here--but I suppose a capsule description is neccesary, for posterity.

Jacko's ears sharpen into hairy points. Whiskers like those of a cat grow from his previously smooth skin...fur sprouts everywhere, his fingernail extend into claws, & his pupils become yellow, vertical slits. . . teeth develop into razored fangs, & his face reshapes itself into something more feline than human. From pop star to werecat in about twelve seconds.... and I may go from journalist to hamburger in even less time. I try to 'port out and am not at all surprised to find that I can't; Jacko's locked me in.

MICHAEL JACKSON: "I'm not comfortable around ... normal people."

The situation being what it is, I take the few precious seconds I have left to activate the Skullbuster one last time--delivering a monster jolt of amphetamine & pure grain alcohol to my system. It's a dose that would kill a Marine in less time than it would take Michael to disembowel me...but suicide isn't what I have in mind, or even anesthesia. No, I just want to deal with Jacko on equal terms--and that means cranking it up to the highest, king-hell level I can stand. Which is a lot...

The rush is like blasting up the outside of the Empire State building on a rocket sled--a fire in the belly & an instant surge of pure energy to every part of my body. Jacko doesn't seem any less terrifying--but the fear is just part of the intensity now, and I can handle it, ride it, use it as fuel. The edge, after all, is where I do my best work...

HUNTER S. THOMPSON: "I use speed as fuel, a neccesary evil. Adrenalin is much smoother and much more dangerous if you fuck up."

"Touch me and you're fucked," I say. Jacko glares at me, one arm raised to claw off my head. I have no idea if he knows I lack the force-field all the other Stars possess ... and I don't care. Out here on the high, white edge, invincibility is a state of mind.

"You want to know why I'm here? I'll tell you why I'm here, you chameleon-dicked bastard...I'm here because of this." I slap a hand on the chamber and Jacko growls, deep in his throat. "But that's not exactly a surprise, is it...you knew that sooner or later I'd show up. Me, or someone like me...just be glad they didn't send Schwarzenegger. He would have stormed this place like a Nazi bunker...the body count would have been horrendous."

"The others sent you?" It's a shock to hear Jacko's choirboy voice isssuing from the mouth of a hellspawned freak...but he sounds hesitant, unsure, and I feel the utter certainty that comes with having a loaded gun stuck in your face and knowing you still have the upper hand.

"Of course they sent me, Michael--who else? And they're not happy, no, not at all...you've been holding out on them. They can't let you have this kind of advantage...it disturbs the balance, Michael. You should have heard Roseanne--she was pissed, Michael. And she's not someone you want to cross...so they sent me, to take care of the problem."

The arm lowers. "What do you mean, take care of it?"

"It's got to go, Michael. I'm here to dispose of it...in whatever way I deem necessary."

"No! You can't! I won't let you..." He takes a cat-quick step towards me, but I stop him dead with a bark of laughter.

"Ha! You fool, it's already too late...this thing is wired to blow. The switch is inside my head and it'll activate automatically if anything happens to me. It's a nano-molecular bomb--it'll convert half the thing into nitro & the rest into phosphorous. This place'll go up like the Waco compound..."

It's an unbelievable, outrageous claim at best--and yet, Jacko gives it serious consideration. And it's not because he's a fool...this, more than any of the drugs I've done, blows my mind. That I live in a world where my worst paranoid ravings must be carefully examined...because they could prove to be true.

MADONNA: "Manipulating people, that's what I'm good at."

"Is that a threat?" It's my turn to take a step forward, and this time Jacko backs away.

"No, no...it's just unsafe, that's all. The stasis chamber isn't a weapon--it just keeps the nanites in my body under control when I sleep. Without it, my dreams would affect the waking world--I'd transform myself, and anything else near me while I slept. The Linkers said I needed it because my body has so many nanites in it...it draws the nanites from my brain and then isolates them with my body while my mind sleeps. The chamber also prevents molecular degradation..."

"How?" I snap. If it seems like a strange question, Jacko doesn't notice...he's been thrown off-balance by my sudden threats and hints of a ruthless conspiracy.

"Like I said, it's a stasis chamber. It freezes time itself...for the eight hours that the nanites are stored in it, no time passes at all. It effectively adds a third more longevity to their molecular cohesion..."

There's more, but I don't really hear it. The fountain of youth turns out to be a stagnant pond...there's no reversal of entropy here, only a temporary immobilization of the status quo. And even that is only a stopgap measure against the relentless advance of Old Man Time...my friend will have to learn to live with his pain, or find another way to overcome it. Even gods have their limitations...and death, it seems, is one of them.

BILLY JOEL: "Death is death, and the ego can't handle the consequences."

"That's fine," I say, cutting Jacko off in mid-sentence. "The situation is clearly different from what we had assumed--but don't think this lets you off the hook. We'll be watching you...and your pretty little floating playground." I can feel the edge fading, and know I have to wrap this up before Jacko turns on me. This could still go very badly wrong..."I've deactivated the bomb--but unless I report within ten minutes, my backup will assume the worst. I won't tell you who they are--but you don't want them swarming over Neverland like a horde of army ants."

He studies me for a moment, cat-eyes narrowed...and then leaps, straight for my throat. I've finally pushed it too far ...but my own reflexes, strung as tight as piano wire by the speed, are pretty sharp themselves. I dive forward, under his leap, hit the floor rolling and make it back to my feet by the time he lands & whirls around. My credibility with Jacko seems to be gone, and it was the best weapon I had...but the adrenaline has kicked me into overdrive, back up on the edge again, and I suddenly know how to end this. All I need is enough time to say one thing before Jacko turns me into a scratching post...

"Manson."

He hesitates.

"He's out, Michael. And the Linkers don't care about which side he's on...he's an icon, just like you, and he's been given the same kind of power. But while your medium is music, his is murder--and don't think he's alone. Manson's style has always been to sit at the head of the table and let others do the carving...and I can guess who the others are. They have names like Bundy, Gacy, Dahmer...and they'll be more than happy to help out Mr. Helter Skelter."

"What does that have to do with me?" he snarls...but I can see a hint of The Fear in his eyes.

"You already know, Michael. Helter Skelter was the song that set Manson off, so many years ago...a song Manson thought the Beatles were using to preach to him. A song the Beatles no longer own...and you do. You outbid them for the rights. You stole the Gospel from its rightful owners, Michael...and we both know Manson will not take that lightly."

JOHN LENNON: "We're more popular than Jesus Christ right now."

"I'm not afraid of him..."

"And maybe you don't have to be...after all, you're a Star. I'm sure you're well protected, personally...but that's not how Manson operates. He goes after families. And you're surrounded by thousands of potential victims..."

"I can protect them--"

MICHAEL JACKSON: "One of my favourite pastimes is being with children--talking to them, playing with them in the grass. They're one of the main reasons I do what I do."

"Can you? From another Star? I'm not so sure... killers have their own special abilities, Michael. Your little pain-trade trick may not work with someone like Gacy--or he might like the pain. And he'd turn this place into a slaughterhouse..."

"You wouldn't." I can hear a tremble in his voice, and even though I know I've won, all I feel is a sick kind of guilt. Threatening the lives of children is not my style...my own impending demise is the only thing that would drive me to such depths. It's not a victory to be savored...and suddenly all I want is to be away from this shiny, happy place. I need a dark bar and some John Lee Hooker on the jukebox...somewhere to come down and lick my wounds. But first I have to take this bluff to its ugly, logical conclusion.

"Wouldn't I? Right now, all that's keeping Charlie back is the other Stars. Fuck with me, and he'll fuck with you...let me leave in peace and we'll keep him in line. Unless you don't mind risking innocent lives..."

"All right. Go. But don't ever come back, any of you." He sounds more sad than angry, and I feel another stab of guilt as I bop out before he changes his mind. I hope he eventually realizes he's been conned...Jacko's life is weird enough without me suggesting a pack of crazed serial killers are gunning for him.

There was no way I could have known then that I was absolutely right...