Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (60 page)

“Wow, I didn’t even think about asking for stock tips…” whispers Twinker.

“Jimmy’s Uncle Lloyd told me the same thing…” Gordon whispers back at her, remembering. “They must be going big.”

Doctor Lemingeller shifts his attention over to Daniel: “Daniel… the nickname ‘Fleabutt’ will no longer trigger a sense of shame and inadequacy in you. The size of your rear end is perfectly normal. From now on, whenever you hear someone call you ‘Fleabutt,’ you’ll be filled with masculine pride and a sense of worthiness. Women will lust after you and you’ll become a testosterone-charged lover, cutting an erotic swath through these little Valley towns that will take you all the way to Hollywood. You’ll become a famous actor there, adored by millions. And you’ll never have any trouble memorizing your lines or faking an accent. In fact, you’ll be so good at being fake that people will think you’re the real thing.”

Taking a few steps back, Doctor Lemingeller gazes upon his motionless subjects like Doctor Frankenstein gloating over his monster. “Now… on the count of three, I’m going to snap my fingers and bring you up out of your trance. You won’t remember my suggestions, but you’ll act upon them. Your lives will reflect the commands I’ve given you here today.
One, two, three….
”

Click.

Kimmie and Daniel twitch themselves back to reality. Doctor Lemingeller gives them some smooth patter about how their lives will be improving, and then he sends them on their way.

Watching them leave, Doctor Lemingeller shakes his head with a rueful grin and says: “I’ve never had anyone come up to me after the show and say, ‘Make me a kinder and more loving person….’ Everyone wants to be rich and famous, or they want me to undo some bad habit they’ve fallen into out of sheer laziness. It’s all about greed and lust and power-hunger–things that feed the ego–which isn’t exactly good for the soul, you know…. But I give them what they want, because it’ll make their lives more interesting. Beyond that, who cares? So you’re up next, kids. What’ll it be?”

“I want you to make me a kind and loving catalyst for world peace,” Twinker says defiantly. “But to do that, I’ll probably have to win the Miss America Contest, so first I’ll need to kick my crystal meth habit, and then I’ll have to get some enormous globules of silicone implanted in my chest.”

–
like Vonda
, Gordon thinks again, grinning. Sometimes Twinker cracks him up.

“What about you?” Doctor Lemingeller asks Gordon.

“I’m just here to watch,” Gordon says, “unless you’ve got some surefire cures for asthma and narcolepsy.”

“I might.”

“Do her first and I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Suit yourself…. So, Isabelle, is there some truth to what you just said? Do you really have a little drug problem?”

“Actually, I have a hideously huge, monster drug problem,” Twinker says. “I have to snort a few lines every morning just to get out of bed. It’s because of my back. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s all twisted, and I’m usually in a lot of pain.”

“I think I can help out with that,” Doctor Lemingeller says.

“I sure hope so,” says Twinker. “Because right now, being me kind of sucks.”

With the now-familiar finger wagging and pinch to the neck, Doctor Lemingeller drops Twinker into a trance. She slumps against the hypnotist and slides down his body until her cheek comes to rest near his crotch. Vonda walks over to stand next to Gordon, who can’t stop himself from leaning forward in the dim light to steal another peek at her luscious fake breasts.

“You like these?” Vonda whispers, flirting with him. She tugs on the front of her spangled blue dress, revealing a lacy black push-up bra and twin crescents of blushing pink areolas. Gordon is in a trance even
before
his neck feels the talon-like clamp of Vonda’s nails, plunging his face into her cleavage and its abyss.

“Isabelle… Gordon… you’re both plummeting into the deepest levels of hypnotic trance you’re capable of,” Doctor Lemingeller says while Vonda lays Gordon out on the stage floor, crouching over him like a shimmering succubus. “And if I’m correct in my assumptions, you’re both capable of going
quite
deep. I suspect you’ve both had repeated exposure to hypnotic mind control programming dating back to your early childhood. To test that theory, I’m going to ask you both to bring forward your core alters.”

My core what?
Gordon asks himself, lying utterly limp.

“Now… can either of you tell me what ALPHA is?” Doctor Lemingeller asks.

Oh, wait! I know this!
“ALPHA is base level programming…” Gordon says as an alien interior voice wrestles for dominance over what he considers his normal, everyday consciousness. “Multiple personalities, or ‘alters,’ are produced in subjects via trauma and ensuing dissociation,” the voice says. “Drugs, light and sound technologies, and NASA spinning chambers are also used to subvert normal consciousness, allowing for deeper hypnotic programming. Although often psychologically devastating, these splitting and compartmentalization techniques can result in enhanced mental functioning such as photographic memory, heightened visual acuity, and perfect auditory recall. Foreign language fluency, higher mathematics, and college-level reading skills can be achieved by age five.”

“DON’T CRY OR WE’LL SHOCK YOU!” Twinker shouts.

“Isabelle, no one here is going to shock you,” Doctor Lemingeller says, stroking the back of her head. “Please stand up. I want you to tell me what BETA is.”

“BETA is sexuality programming,” Twinker says, rising up and kicking off her white tennis shoes. The one with the eight-inch platform heel goes thudding across the floor like a tossed brick with a ransom note attached to it. Gordon watches in sheer astonishment as Twinker stretches herself like a sun-lazing cat and miraculously straightens out her spine. Her whole body suddenly assumes a sexier shape: fuller breasts, tighter abs, longer legs–even her cheekbones seem to rise. She goes from being a strange kind of beautiful to drop-dead gorgeous in less than a minute.

“I take it your BETA-programmed alter is with us now,” Doctor Lemingeller says, not quite as astonished as Gordon, but still visibly impressed. “Does she have a name?”

“Kelly,” Twinker purrs. She playfully bats at Lemingeller’s black silk tie. It’s meant to be flirtatious, but the gesture comes off as forced–a grotesque kind of acting. It’s as if she’s become the walking, talking embodiment of a sick male fantasy.

“And what are you programmed to do, Kelly?” Doctor Lemingeller asks.

“I’ve been trained in the art of sexually pleasuring older men,” she answers like a short-circuiting love doll created by the animatronics division at Disneyland. “I have no moral inhibitions whatsoever and no orifice is off-limits. I’m particularly skilled at deep throat techniques and getting my sexual partners to talk about themselves. I’ve had sex with diplomats, high-ranking government officials, celebrities, and heads of state. Most of my sexual encounters were filmed and later used as blackmail. I’ve also functioned as a hypnotic courier, a drug mule, and a participant in child pornography.”

“Who is your handler?” Doctor Lemingeller is going about this interview as if he’s done it many times before.

“My father, Naval Lieutenant Commander Manuel A. Ramirez. He did my initial training.”

There’s a part of Gordon’s everyday consciousness, still witnessing everything, which suddenly says,
“Holy Shit!”

“We won’t go into all the sordid details…” Doctor Lemingeller says, “but I’m guessing your father was in a compromised position with his military superiors.”

“You could say that, yes,” Twinker gives him a sly, fractured grin. “He raped me for the first time in a field of tall green grass when I was six. I told on him. I thought he’d get in really big trouble, but they just enrolled me in their little
pro-gram
instead. And the worst thing was… a part of me–
this
part–actually enjoyed it. I got off on it.”

You probably didn’t get off on it…
thinks Gordon,
but more likely, for their own safety, they programmed you to think that.

“The body has a terrifying logic all its own,” Doctor Lemingeller says, trying to empathize with Twinker/Kelly while he uses his frilly handkerchief to mop up sweat. “Torment heightens our sensibilities. ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger,’ as Nietzsche said.”

“How about you, Gordon?” Vonda asks, tickling his cheek with her draped hair. “Any BETA training?”

“Does a handjob count?” It’s out of his mouth before he has time to consider the impression it will make.
God!
If he wasn’t so limp, he could kick himself.

“Stand up, Gordon,” Doctor Lemingeller says. “I suspect your programming lies elsewhere. Do you know what DELTA is?”

Gordon shrugs. He’s clueless.

“It’s assassination programming,” Doctor Lemingeller explains. “Trained killers, including those who perform ritual sacrifices. I’d bet good money your friend, Jimmy, is one of them. How about THETA? Ring a bell?”

Oh shit.
“Psychic abilities…” Gordon says, the words coming unbidden. “Astral travel… remote viewing… precognition… telepathy… telekinesis… mind-sharing.”

“Yes, but aren’t you forgetting something?”

Gordon searches Doctor Lemingeller’s mind. It’s easier than flipping through TV stations with a remote. He almost instantly finds the words he should have anticipated:

“Psychic killers.”

“That’s right. You’re among the rarest of the rare–someone who can kill with just a thought. Now, there’s only one more thing,” Doctor Lemingeller says, “and I want to hear it from both of you. For today’s Double Jeopardy Jackpot… what is OMEGA?”

“Self-abuse!” Gordon answers with a surge of adrenaline.

“No! Self-destruct!” Twinker shouts, equally amped up. Her voice has become shrill and metallic. She sounds like a robot.

“Really?” says Gordon, directing a friendly squint toward Twinker. “Because I could’ve sworn it was self-abuse….”

“It’s not self-abuse,” Twinker snaps at him. “It’s self-destruct. Self-destruct!”

“She’s right, Gordon,” Doctor Lemingeller says. “If you start accessing memories from your training, you’re supposed to activate programming for self-destruction–not self-abuse.”

“Sheesh, no wonder I’ve been jerking off so much….”

“Who did your programming?” Doctor Lemingeller asks him. “Doctor West? Doctor Estabrooks? Certainly not Doctor Greene?”

“
Ooooh!
I know Doctor Greene!” Twinker says, waving her hand. “I know him! He put an electrode in my vagina!” Obviously, one of her more obnoxious personalities has taken over. Her back has already returned to its usual, bent-out-of-whack shape.

“I’m not really sure who did my programming,” Gordon says. “I mean, I’ve been through so much…” he ad-libs. That word, OMEGA, popped him right out of his trance. He’s fully himself again.

“Just give me a name,” Doctor Lemingeller says, looking at him suspiciously. “One I haven’t already mentioned.”

Gordon takes a wild guess. “Um, Doctor Smiley?”

“Smiley!” The hypnotist’s forehead crinkles in exasperation. “
Fuck!
If Doctor Smiley didn’t have that pediatric clinic with access to all those sick kids, they would’ve strung him up by his bow tie years ago. I can’t believe they entrusted a THETA-level psychic to that asshole! You’ll need an entire course of deprogramming, right away, or who knows what’ll come crawling out of you. I’d do it myself, but I have to be on a plane back to Reno in a few hours.”

“Let me take him to see Doctor Greene!” Twinker volunteers. “I can drive a car… at high speeds into a bridge abutment! Or turn us both into a walking timebombs!”

“Isabelle, please return to your front alter position. This OMEGA personality isn’t helping….” Doctor Lemingeller breathes a heavy sigh. “Now pay attention–both of you. On the count of three, I’m going to snap my fingers and bring you both up out of your trance. You will not–let me repeat that–
will not
remember anything that we’ve talked about. Oh, and Isabelle… you’ll have to keep your degrading drug habit. They actually
want
you to have that. It induces an artificial model psychosis, which makes it easier for them to manipulate you. Now–forgetting that we ever had this conversation–on the count of three:
One, two, three….

Whatever you say, Baldy,
Gordon thinks.

Click.

He’ll be remembering everything. It’s actually making him kind of horny.

□ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □

Believe it or not, Doctor Lemingeller was trying in his show-offy way to help. Not all hypnotists are bad news. The good ones know that just about everyone spends most of their time in a trance–practically all day, every day, mostly thanks to television, dull work routines, and bad habits. We willingly enter that tranquilized state of obliviousness to keep ourselves from thinking too much about all the pain and suffering in the world, including our own. We’re like the sheep in Gurdjieff’s parable about the rich and evil magician who was too stingy to put up a fence around his pasture. His sheep were always hauling their wooly asses out of there, because they knew the magician wanted to turn them into lamb chops and car seat covers. But then:

“At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.

“And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins.”