As so often in the past, on this evening Daves research didnt so much hit a brick wall as get subsumed into the bland mass of meaningless drivel he found at every turn. As the internet proved all too conclusively, quantity in no way made up for quality when it was information you were after. All the web seemed good for was reinforcing a whole battery of previously conceived misconceptions, strengthening and hammering them home.
More confused and bewildered than ever, Dave fell asleep slumped over his keyboard the slowly accumulating pool of dribble moulding his moist cheeks to the contours of the harsh plastic keys. When he woke the next day it took nearly an hour of careful massage to coax his face back into its world-weary and slightly less rectangular form.
9. If You Tolerate This Your CD Collection Will Be Next
Not far from where Kate had conducted her interview with farmer Smith, a swampy field just outside Glastonbury was packed with people, just as it always was at this time of year.
But the crowds of bleary-eyed festival-goers werent solely here for the music. Judging by the mud, and the queues for the toilets, they werent here for their health either. There existed third-world refugee camps with better sanitary conditions than these. But at least the victims of mankinds latest war werent crowded out by gaudily tie-dyed stalls manned by grey-haired hippies trying to sell everything from Abduction Survival Kits and King Arthur radio clock alarms to Make Quorn Edible recipe books. There was more crystal in this quiet Somerset town than all the chandeliers in the Versailles Hall of Mirrors put together, but fortunately there wasnt a delegation of high-level Germans getting stitched up nearby. The Glastonbury Experience was designed to cater for far more than just the anally-retentive masochistic music fan, it was ingeniously crafted to appeal to people wishing to make a lifestyle choice.
And what a choice it was. The masses of combat-trouser-clad off-duty estate agents and junior management consultants were there for the dope. If theyd wanted music they had perfectly good CD players in their Audis and BMWs clogging the huge car parks nearby. They were doing something far more profound than simply having a boogie they were making a stand against the relentless drive of consumerism, and they thought £49.951 a head to do so was a bit of a bargain.
Some went with the loud intention of dropping a few es. But the only letter these frustrated public-school boys had ever dropped were hs, in a sad attempt to sound more working class.
The admission was a particular bargain this year, though the organizers didnt realize that yet. If they had known the identity of that years mystery gate-crasher they could have safely trebled the prices, and still sold out ten times over. Lounging in their distant Tuscan villas, value for money had been the last thing in mind but then soon enough, so too would be mere profit.
As the latest mumbling, moody three-piece band to crawl from the mean streets of Newport left the stage, safe in the knowledge that if youre Welsh and grew up in a terraced house no one would ever accuse you of being pretentious, the next act was warming up ready to go on. But this performer wasnt limbering up backstage. No mineral-water-equipped green room hung with nubile groupies was temporary home to this show-biz heavy weight, just as he wasnt to be flown in last minute on a private luxury jet. The anxious stage manager didnt know it yet, but the next visitor was zooming in from much further afield, both in space and time.
Accompanied by a bone-shaking electrical hum, a perfectly triangular black craft slowly descended through the veil of low grey cloud. It came to rest hovering two hundred feet above the sea of upturned awe-struck faces, bathing them in the single baleful yellow light that shone from its keel like an unblinking evil eye. Without a sound the ship effortlessly glided further forward, stopping to float directly over the deserted stage.
The golden light pulsated for a moment, then a single radiant figure slowly descended through the glowing column, as if suspended by an unseen wire.
If the crowd had been speechless before, soon they were hypnotized by the man hunched statue-still up on stage. He wore a spotless white jump-suit, flared cuffs glittering sequin-laced under the eerie light. Behind his lavishly coiffured head stretched an arching radar-dish collar. His bloated top lip was curled in a famous uncontemptuous sneer, as he pressed it hard against a rhinestone-encrusted radio-mike; his other jewel-heavy hand thrust back and up behind him in a quivering stance. The wrap-around shades he wore would have done a welder or an oversensitive vampire proud.
If this was a publicity stunt then it was well worth the admission fee alone. This was the best Elvis impersonator anyone had ever seen, and he certainly knew how to make an entrance. The sideburns were a touch too long and curly, and shot through with grey if truth be told, but every other detail was spot on. Authentically enough he didnt seem to have missed too many meals lately what a commendable touch of professionalism in this slapdash age.
Elvis didnt move his ostentatiously bowed head from where it was hunched over the mike. He had the voice down pat too a harmonious Dixie drawl wrapped up in a diamond-studded velvet glove.
Id just like to tell yall, I dont eat meat no more not since the military started pumping it full of filthy GM hormones. This next number goes out to all those reformed meat-eaters out there and by that I dont mean hamburger lovers, you dig? He formed his upturned hand into a Churchillian victory salute, Viva Lost Vegans, everywhere.
The King then broke into a stirring rendition of one of his best-loved numbers. Accompanied by an unseen orchestra, which seemed to blare out from the black ship above, he tore through Always On My Mind, singing not just to the audience but the entire human race. Any doubts that he was the real thing evaporated the moment he opened his mouth. When he pleaded with them to give me one more chance to keep you satisfied the crowd would have hit the roof, if thered been a roof to hit.
When the noise had subsided to a mere deafening roar, Elvis held up a shaky hand for silence. Whereve ya been, ya Highness? yelled an impatient reveller from the crowds rippling front row.
One of the Kings trembling trouser legs started wobbling of its own accord, generating a terrific breeze as it did so. Well, howdy there, lil pardner. Been staying up at the government-run heartbreak hotel, but now Ive come back to you folks for good aha huuuu.
The crowd erupted into ecstatic screaming delight. Elvis held up a calming hand once again. A fistful of glittering jewellery sparkled amidst the golden light.
First Ive got some news to tell ya. Dont figure yall like it much.
As one the crowd fell silent. Elvis continued in his lilting sing-song voice.
I aint been gone of my own free will. Been a prisoner dancing to a dishonest wardens very own jailhouse rock. For all those long years I been gone, I was held hostage by darkly sinister forces. Yes folks, theres a conspiracy going on behind your backs, perpetrated by your evil governments and the corrupt politicians who spin you their cynical lies.
I aint been gone of my own free will. Been a prisoner dancing to a dishonest wardens very own jailhouse rock. For all those long years I been gone, I was held hostage by darkly sinister forces. Yes folks, theres a conspiracy going on behind your backs, perpetrated by your evil governments and the corrupt politicians who spin you their cynical lies.
There was a howl of incredulous rage, plus some shouts for further songs by some of the less politically-aware festival goers. But this crowd was far from dubious of the great mans claims, there were plenty here today well capable of believing what he told, many who were completely unsurprised by it in fact and didnt the unseen puppeteers just know it.
Those same good ole boys who got to Kennedy, well they got to me too. Kidnapped me from my very own john. Well now Im here in Engle-land for the very first time, ready to start my come-back tour. Gonna be some show!
Meanwhile a single unmarked helicopter had come to hover above the crowd. Those camped beneath it felt the brutal effects of its rotor down-wash tents and teepees flattening beneath its steady thumping force; but its turbines gave off no sound. As it hung there like a spiteful wasp Elvis continued his heart-felt manifesto.
Hard to believe, I know, but theres more to their depraved schemings than just my heinous incarceration. Your governments have kidnapped others too but not just men and women like you and me. Theyve got hangars full of crashed space-aliens little peace-loving grey brothers who mean to do us no harm. Help me to set them free!
Those unlucky few beneath the suspicious black chopper clearly saw a hatch swing open in the side of its smoked-glass cockpit. Those not wrapped up in the Kings astonishing revelations watched as a long gun barrel protruded from this hole. Their screams of warning were lost in the crowds angry roar.
As was the single crack of high-powered rifle fire.
ALIENS GOOD, GOVERNMENTS BAD Elvis led the steadily rising chant, or at least he did until his vaporized brains sprayed backwards across the stage in an ever-widening cloud.
The first the masses knew of the hit was when they saw their idols arms jerk forward in an oddly familiar motion, and the condensing cranial matter reform to perform a brief come-back tour of its own as it trickled down the garish display at the back of the set every detail caught on the giant-sized screens either side of the stage. There was a second of stunned silence, then a massive and strangely resigned moan rose up from the throng.
Somehow managing to look scared for its life, the black triangle beamed up Elviss remains the same way they had come down and beat a hasty retreat up into the clouds. The hovering black chopper went after it in hot pursuit.
That was when the riot began.
When the official forces of government arrived, in the shape of the hard-pressed British police, they had to use tear-gas and electric cattle-prods to disperse the baying crowd. But their efforts to engineer a peaceful conclusion were to no avail. In a quest for instant retribution the surging hordes went on the rampage down Glastonburys sleepy main street; their target, any symbol of the heartless Establishment brave or foolish enough to stand in their way.
A corner-shop post office, three Tourist Information Centres and twelve New Age bookshops paid the ultimate price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They said the pall of choking incense, given off by a thousand burning josticks, hung over the deserted town for generations to come.
They were right.
1 Losing a potential additional 4p on every ticket sold, but this tactic had been carefully and cunningly thought out. What this price-point policy, in accordance with the very latest marketing theories, said was: No, we dont think youre stupid enough to imagine theres a difference between 49.99 and 50, but were banking on you being seduced by that saving of 5p. Were not satisfied selling you an overpriced concert ticket, with the honour of suffering diarrhoea in a draughty chemical toilet thrown in for free, we intend to patronize you first, too. Card number and expiry date please, you gullible fuckwit.
10. Containment
The hospital ward was packed with the sort of hi-tech equipment which could have made the most hardened gadget-freak go weak at the knees thats if the strangely lifeless air and epilepsy-inducing lighting didnt get to him first. However, overcrowding was not likely to become a problem in the near future; this ward contained just one very special patient, but then this was one very special hospital.
Like many of its more conventional counterparts it was of a multi-storey construction, but thats where the similarity ended. While the traditional direction to build a hospital was upwards, this one delved into the bowels of the earth like an overly zealous intern given his first taste of surgery and a very sharp laser scalpel.
Three levels up from the current floor, and nearly twenty years back in time, the bright boys who ministered to the Shadow Government had discovered a general cure for every form of cancer under the sun. Their discovery hadnt made the evening news.
Market forces precluded its release which was to say there were still way too many tax-funded research dollars sloshing around the Cancer Cure Industry for the pharmaceutical conglomerates to let this particular cat out of the bag just yet. On the surface, capitalism might have relied on competition to drive its stuttering heart not so the cosy tight-lipped gaggle of cartels which gerrymandered this shady world. As long as everyone kept quiet, all could prosper. You scratch my back, Ill watch yours.
Like so many other groundbreaking discoveries, the wonder drugs had been locked away in the deepest, darkest vaults; along with the common-cold remedies, everlasting light-bulbs and high-calorie foodstuffs which could have solved the world hunger crisis before you could say Do ya want fries with that? There were now so many prototype water-driven engines on the 42nd floor they were fast running out of space to store them. That fossilized dinosaur steam engine was going to have to be moved.
These miracles of modern technology were not for general consumption,1 they had been created for the benefit of the all-powerful ruling elite first by benefiting them directly, and then by benefiting their bank accounts. The Illuminanti had paid for the R&D, why shouldnt they have sole usage until comprehensive strategies for full exploitation could be formed? When your timescale ran to centuries a few decades here or there made no difference. This was an organization which could afford to take the longest view. The Committee had a duty to see the profits and power of its descendants maximized it was only fair after all.
Some of the real money-spinners, wisely held back by their forefathers, were only now being hatched into profitable schemes. A bio-technology bonanza was in the offing and for once it would have nothing to do with overexposure to pesticides. As soon as the public could be manoeuvred into accepting animal transplantation as a matter of course, and not a cause for Luddite revulsion, the real profits would start rolling in. A fresh killing was patiently waiting to be made, and this beast had blood-shot rolled-back eyes.