O l i v e r B e n j a m i n
in putting a shithole like Violence Television on my list. On second
thought, why don’t you do me a favor and keep us out? Screwing you
guys would be the most fun I’ve had in years.”
Johanness Barth was visibly enraged. Still, he held his emotions
in check, and growled, “Freaking hippies. Fifteen minutes. Then get
out. Security, you go with them. Touch anything, I tear everybody’s
arms off. Clear?”
Harvey was impressed. He had never seen anyone successfully
stand up to Barth before. What courage! What command! What
power! What the hell was he thinking? He was supposed to hate this
woman. He resolved to hate her.
As they entered the lab, Harvey was struck by waves of nostalgia,
similar to the waves that pounded the Los Angeles shoreline:
exhilarating but strangely toxic. All that he had tried to forget: the
toil, the love, the blood and the glory; and also the grief, the
frustration, the surprise and the shame. This laboratory had been his
life. It was all that he had ever strived for, and now all he would ever
fight against. It was maddening. His own fruit, a tool with so much
potential for good, had betrayed him right out of the starting block.
Yet this was a story, he knew, that had been repeated throughout
history: Jehovah’s creation and adoration of man ending ultimately
in frustration and separation; the doctrination of Buddhism by the
Mahayana; the Catholic church’s vilification of its Judaic foundation;
Arthur’s betrayal by Lancelot; Marx’ socialist vision paradoxically
exploited by tyrants; Freud’s ridicule by followers of the very science
he created; Nietzche’s superman trading in his own Muchosuit for a
Nazi uniform. There were so many more. History has left in its wake
legions of weeping fathers, lamenting wayward sons.
Harvey now stared lovingly at his child, his discovery, his
creation. The security guards and lab technicians had to be distracted
long enough to give him time to remove the main chip from the
inside of the Epiphany Machine and put it in his pocket, but this
would not be easy without some diversion. As it was, Shiva had a
secret weapon hidden in her uniform: herself.
Most of the technicians had spent their lives in front of circuits
and computer monitors and had rarely interacted with beautiful
women outside of virtual sex programs, so they were intrigued by the
diminutive goddess to say the least. While Victoria pretended to be
assessing the status of the laboratory animals, Shiva employed her
charms to the fullest, wandering around the room and remarking on
115
 |
 |
 |
 |